


The Diary of Sam Winchester's Private Witch

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Addict Sam, Addiction, Ballet, Daughters, Dean Hates Witches, Demon Blood, Demon Blood Addict Sam, Demon Blood Addiction, Detox, Diary/Journal, Drama & Romance, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Secrets, Father-Daughter Relationship, Forbidden Love, Future, Future Fic, Future Sam, Future Sam Winchester, Gen, Goddesses, Herbalism, Imbolc, Immortality, Immortals, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, Louisiana, Love, Love at First Sight, Magic, Minor Castiel/Dean Winchester, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Paganism, Parallel With Canon Timeline, Parent Sam, Parent Sam Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, References to Addiction, Rituals, Romance, Romantic Angst, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Gestures, Romantic Sam, Sam Has A Child, Sam Has Issues, Sam Has Secrets, Sam On Demon Blood, Sam in Love, Sam-Centric, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Sick Sam Winchester, Spells & Enchantments, True Love, Very Secret Diary, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all witches are cut from the same demon-dealing mold. Deep within French history exists a semi-immortal breed of hereditary witch, somewhere between human and inhuman, who call themselves Les Sorcières Du Vieux Sang (Witches of the Old Blood). Sam Winchester will be the first to vehemently reject any slurs against witchfolk, but no one—not even his brother, Dean—has guessed why. You see, Sam has a wife, Connie, one of these witches, stashed carefully away in Natchitoches, Louisiana, far away from Winchester hunting grounds. Their union, which occurred while Dean was in Purgatory, is such a secret that not even their daughter, Sophie, knows much about her father. But as Sophie reaches her sixteenth birthday many years later, Les Sorcières tradition dictates that she must know every secret of her heritage before she can mature into a full witch. This is Sophie’s story, discovering the truth behind her mother and her father’s mysterious marriage-by-distance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_January 23, 2030_

_My dearest Sophie,_

_You were born on the festival day of Lady Brigid, goddess of our Irish sisters, and I know now that it was your Irish heritage reaching through time to caress your cheek and claim you as her own that winter day. February 2 will such a milestone in your young life as you turn sixteen and begin to come into your own among modern witchfolk and mortals alike._

_I know you hope for a car, as girls your age often do, but you will have to wait until your consecration ritual to see your gifts. For now, I'm taking the quiet time before your birthday and passing along my gift to you, which your friends must never see. You were raised to guard the secret of what we are and I trust that you will guard these secrets just the same. You see, in our old world, a mother must pass on the secrets of a girl's magical lineage on her sixteenth birthday. You come from powerful witchfolk as old as time and you will enjoy a life far longer than mortals, even your father. It is a burden witchfolk must bear, living often seven or eight centuries, but you have the power through your inner magic to do great things for the world._

_Before you ripen as a young witchling, you must know where you came from and guard the secrets with your life. I am now prepared to tell you about your father, a question which you've posed to me so many times since you learned to talk._ _Of course, you know his name and you hug his neck during every minute of his visits, but you know almost nothing about his history or his people. He gave you the Irish blood that caused you to be born on Lady Brigid's festival day._

_His life and family were concealed from you for your own protection, although you were never before able to understand that in your periodic storms of slamming doors and angry shouting matches. I never could punish you for your outbursts because I understood your pain. It is the pain of every little girl desperate for her father's love. It's difficult enough trying to blend into the 21st century when your mother was born in 1642 and knowing you will outlive your friends' great-great-great grandchildren, but depriving you of your father and his family has undoubtedly caused you far more anguish._

_Let me assure you that your father would lay down his life for you. He almost did once. And while you and I must always conceal the truth that we are_ Les Sorcières Du Vieux Sang _(Witches of the Old Blood), your father bears the burden of concealing his little semi-immortal family here in Natchitoches from his entirely mortal family in Kansas._

 _They are hunters, darling Sophie. Hunters are born and bred through long lineages (a bit like ours) to destroy what they deem inhuman, unnatural, and dangerous for the protection of the human species. We, being_ Les Sorcières _, are all of these things to your father's family, yet he does not feel that way about us. He is a hunter with his heart living among the immortal and, therefore, carries a burden as great as ours. You must love him for all that he's done for you and his devotion to your happiness._

 _Listen to me carefully, sweet girl. Put away this letter and open the next envelope. There, you will find a letter written by your father. He knows of our tradition for young_ Les Sorcières _upon reaching womanhood, as you will next week, and we have his blessing. Once you've read his letter, we want you to read the two books in this box. I wrote everything in journals--from the moment I met him until your fifth birthday.  
_

_The final book is our family Grimoire. I'm passing it on to you now, as it is our tradition. Take care of it, my love. I brought it with me to the New World from France, our motherland, in 1722, as a witchling striking out on my own. Embrace our traditions, Sophie, but be proud too that you are the daughter of a great man, Sam Winchester._

_All my love and devotion,_  
 _your Maman_

*****

Sophie Rulon-Winchester leaned back on her bed and rested her head on the wall. She let it roll to the side where an open window over the nightstand let wispy white lace curtains curl and sway in the balmy Louisiana winter breeze.

It was true. She'd been bugging  _Maman_ for as long as she could remember about her dad--who he was, why he only came home two or three times each year, and why she was never allowed to talk about him at school. She always remembered him as so big and mighty like Superman with longer, floppy hair. When he carried her around on her shoulders, she felt like she could fly. But then he'd go away again, always speaking to  _Maman_  in hushed tones about "my brother" this and "my brother" that. Nobody ever told Sophie anything.

There in her hands, though, she held the truth in a couple of quite heavy journals complete with ribbon bookmarks and gilt edged paper. They looked like bigger versions of her own journal stashed between the mattresses where she sat. Her book was full of details about her boyfriend, Jackson Carter, and the other kids in her book club. She turned one of the journals over in her hands, wondering if  _Maman_ knew Sam Winchester would be that important when she first wrote his name. Maybe Jackson would even be that important to Sophie someday. He was going to LSU when they graduated (they were only juniors though) and he wanted her to go with him. But they weren't going to be secretive. That was for damn sure.

"Quit stalling," Sophie muttered to herself.

Sitting straighter in bed, Sophie folded long legs beneath her and tied her mess of long dark hair up on top of her head in a messy bun. She pulled out the contents of the envelope from her dad and a handful of photographs scattered across her pastel floral bedspread.

One photograph she recognized immediately. There sat her dad in a chair still in the same corner downstairs and tucked in a tiny little blanket bundle was her as a newborn drinking from a bottle. He grinned sideways at the camera like he'd been taken by surprise. The other photographs confused her, however. People she didn't know populated them, like a blonde woman and an older man who resembled her dad a little bit. In another photograph, she found another man roughly her dad's age but with shorter hair and freckles across his nose. He slung an arm around an uptight guy with dark hair, blue eyes, and a bad suit.

Setting aside the photographs, Sophie opened her father's letter and, fighting her jumpy stomach, she began to read....

*****

_December 25, 2029_

_Hi sweetpea,_

_It's Christmas and I'm sitting here in Kansas thinking of my little girl. But you're not really little anymore, are you? You're my daughter, which means you'll probably be taller than everybody else if you're not already and you might feel weird about it. I did. Trust me--long legs will come in handy one day._

_Your mother says it's time for you to know more about me and my side of the family. It's a rite of passage for witchlings. I can't pretend this is easy for me because I vowed when you were born to protect you from hunters even though I am one. I also don't pretend to believe you'll forgive me when you learn everything about what I do and what brought me to your mother seventeen years ago. What matters is I made her my wife and all that I have will go to both of you when I die. You'll always be my baby girl with the silly, bubbly giggle._

_I'm supposed to give you some information. So, we'll start with me. I'm named after my mother's father, Samuel Campbell, and I was born on May 2, 1983. I have an older brother, Dean, who was named after my mother's mother, Deanna Campbell, and a younger half-brother, Adam Milligan, who my dad had after my mom died. Our mom and dad were John and Mary Winchester, and Dad's parents were Millie and Henry Winchester. That should give you a good start in building a family tree if that's something you want to do. I can even send you family history records since my granddad Henry kept pretty serious tabs on our ancestors. It's all your choice though._

_What else can I tell you? My father's side of the family was very scholarly. I'm a legacy member of the Men of Letters (and so are you), which was begun before World War II. It's a secret society meant to make us preceptors, observers, beholders, and chroniclers of the unknown (the supernatural). Ironically, Men of Letters look down on hunters, and that's what my mom's family was. Hunters search for supernatural creatures and kill those who mean harm to the human race._

_So, sweetpea, you may feel conflicted about being half-witch and half-human but I do have an understanding of that. Since I was younger than you, I've been horribly conflicted about who I am. Killing was never in my nature but fighting my parents' legacy often became too hard and I gave in for long stretches of my life. Once I even tried to walk away and go to law school._

_Now I've reopened the Men of Letters to the descendants of original members. This has been my job for about eight years and I'm happy doing something more scholarly than driving cross-country getting into trouble fighting monsters. I'm 46-years-old now. Too old for that life. One day I'd like you to come stay with me at the Men of Letters bunker so you can get to know the other legacies and this part of your family too. Your Uncle Dean has gotten softer now that he's 50-years-old and settled down with Cas and their kids. I don't want to have to keep my wife and child a secret anymore, and if I feel revealing your identities is safe, I intend to bring the two halves of my family together._

_I love you, pretty girl. I never hid you out of shame. I've always been proud to be your dad but I had to keep you and your mom safe from hunters who wouldn't understand. That, for a long time, included my own brother._

_I'll see you soon. I wouldn't miss your consecration ritual for the world, my little witchling._

_Love,_  
 _Daddy_

*****

It was like meeting her father all over again, even though he'd just been there last summer. She thought of coming home from cheerleading camp and stopping dead in her tracks downstairs at the sight of Sam Winchester drinking coffee in the kitchen. It seemed like Sophie's life was marked by long stretches of nothing interesting until the excitement of Dad coming home for a week or two here and there.

Still, she'd always felt a void, a certain emptiness. She shared Dad with faceless people and she'd made up awful stories about them in her mind to console her lonely heart. Really, who was Dean? Who was Cas? And who were John, Mary, Millie, Henry, Samuel, and Deanna? Sophie had names and facts but no hints of soul behind them.

If her mother didn't give her answers in those journals, she didn't know what she'd do. Sophie tucked her dad's letter and photographs in her nightstand drawer for safekeeping. With a slight tremble in her hand, she opened the first leatherbound book and touched her mother's familiar antiquated handwriting.

*****

_June 14, 2012_

_I encountered a mortal man at Ripley's tonight. He stumbled right into me with such massive dead weight and glassy eyes that I took him for every other drunken drifter. Then I caught a whiff of that awful sulfur lingering in his flannel shirt and I had such a sinking feeling that I followed him to the bathroom. He was too lost to know I even existed. There in the men's room, I watched through a crack in the door as he pulled a silver flask from his inner jacket pocket and the offending blood poured into the palm of his hand. He sucked his palm clean and my heart broke against every ounce of privacy I held dear. That poor mortal man battled an addiction to demon blood and, testing his mind, I listened to self-loathing thoughts about relapse...._

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Chapter 2

Sophie slammed the old diary shut having barely made it through the first page. She vaulted over the end of her bed and clutched the book to her chest as she bounded downstairs. Blood pumped hot and angry through her body. She feared that sensation after what she read. She feared the possibilities.

"Maman," she barked in perfect Louisiana French, "my father is a demon blood addict?"

The 200-year-old house was one of the few remaining in the parish that contained a working hearth in the kitchen. In fact, the kitchen took up the whole back half of the ground floor as most old houses were built in those days. The fireplace, as tall as Sophie, blazed under her mother's care. Constance Rulon-Winchester didn't stir with the question but instead remained fixed on her work making dried lavender, sage, and sweetgrass bundles at a pine worktable. She tied ribbons on them, each color chosen for specific purposes--calm and relaxation, cleansing, good health, luck--all of which mortals consumed for superficial needs.

"Maman! Answer me!" Sophie stamped her foot on the hardwood floor. Daddy had scrubbed, sanded, stained, and brought those floors back to life about four years before, and there she stood stomping on them in a fit.

Her mother, who people called Connie, ignored her still. She cut a length of pale blue ribbon and tied a bow around one end of a bundle made of braided sweetgrass and lavender. Several other finished bundles laid in a wicker basket off to one corner of the pine worktable ready for sale on her website. New Age supply shops were all the rage in that modern age and Sophie had set it up so her mother could make money without having to be around mortals too often. They sensed something strange about her in their physical presence. A witch born in 1642 carried unsurmountable energy.

"How could you marry someone like that? How could you have me?" continued Sophie. "You know if the addicted mortals drink too much, they become demonic themselves. Maman, am I half-demon?" Tears threatened, burning her eyes, but she refused to cry like a frightened little baby.

Finally, Connie acknowledged her daughter. Soulful dark eyes lifted to Sophie's face, and wavy chocolate hair flowing beyond her shoulders, gave her a warm golden aura in the firelight. Centuries old, she barely looked forty. Connie grasped Sophie's hand in silence and pressed the bundle of sweetgrass and lavender she'd just made into her palm. Sophie wanted to roll her eyes. Witchery wasn't what she needed at that moment but she should have expected it.

"Read all of it. You'll understand," said Connie in a tender tone.

"But Mam--"

"--Patience," her mother insisted. "Burn steady pieces in your fire. It'll--"

"--It'll keep me calm. I know." With a heavy sigh, Sophie folded her arm around the book and the herb bundle.

Connie's full, kind mouth curved in a slight smile as she touched Sophie's cheek. "You hold the diary close to your heart just the way you hold your father. Don't become blinded by impulsive anger. Your father has been unfairly judged by his family for the whole of his life. Don't be another name on that list too. Give the history a chance to reveal itself, all right? You'll understand everything. I promise."

A flare of defiance grew and died away in Sophie. She could be quite impulsive--that was true--but she wasn't unreasonable either. Daddy didn't look evil and she hadn't sensed anything hellish on him whenever they were together. Her mind drifted back to her sixth birthday when he showed up unexpectedly just to bring her presents and a pie. In his family, he'd said, birthdays were marked with good pie rather than cake. He spent four days with her on that visit, which involved tea parties and Barbie dolls, all without a breath of complaint. Daddy even did the voices in the Harry Potter books they read together. Nothing ever warned her about a potential demon in her home. It didn't make sense and she sighed, rubbing her forehead with a free hand.

"Growing into a mature witch is never easy," assured Connie softly. "You're a gifted witchling, though, and I have faith you'll be a powerful force for good in your own time, like your father as a hunter."

"Hunters aren't good," Sophie retorted with an eyeroll.

"Your father is," the older witch replied patiently.

Sophie regretted saying such a thing. She buttoned up her mouth and nodded.

"Go finish reading, ma bichette," Connie urged after a moment.

Nodding again, Sophie took the diary and the herb bundle back upstairs to her bedroom. She shut the door and dropped the diary on the end of her bed. Her hand lifted, palm up, with her fingers curling upward like the licks of flames from the base of a fire. Air swirled around her legs pregnant with hot energy, growing and rising until loose hair swept free from the messy bun on top of her head. Golden, orange, and red sparks popped in the logs seated in her fireplace. Soon a blast of hot air erupted from her hand and she threw an underhanded toss toward the target. The logs ignited, fully transferring the accumulated energy from her body to the fire, all without the need for matches or a lighter.

Her personal altar stood in the north corner of the room, newly decorated for the approach of the spring. Despite being of a French hereditary line of witchfolk, Sophie's matron goddess was Brigid of their Celtic witchfolk sisters. A swath of green and white candles sprang to life with a flick of her fingers and illuminated her altar tools as well as the carved Brigid figure and a milk jug containing snowdrops and daffodils. Sophie lit one end of the herb bundle and cleansed herself with the smoke.

"I ask My Lady for the strength and courage to endure whatever comes," she murmured. Fingertips bounced from her heart, to her lips, to her forehead, and toward the sky in a self-blessing exclusive to her mother's ancient bloodline. "Brigid, be with me in these difficult days."

The altar remained lit for the time being and Sophie left the slow burning sweetgrass braided with lavender in an offering bowl. She settled on her bed again and, feeling sturdier that time, picked up her mother's diary for a second time.

*****

_June 14, 2012_

_I encountered a mortal man at Ripley's tonight. He stumbled right into me with such massive dead weight and glassy eyes that I took him for every other drunken drifter. Then I caught a whiff of that awful sulfur lingering in his flannel shirt and I had such a sinking feeling that I followed him to the bathroom. He was too lost to know I even existed. There in the men's room, I watched through a crack in the door as he pulled a silver flask from his inner jacket pocket and the offending blood poured into the palm of his hand. He sucked his palm clean, and my heart broke against every ounce of privacy I held dear. That poor mortal man battled an addiction to demon blood and, testing his mind, I listened to self-loathing thoughts about relapse._

_What was I to do? I thought it best to go back to my corner table a drink in peace. Getting involved with every lost mortal I encountered would never give me any rest. I reminded myself of the danger, especially when I saw the rosary and blade sticking out of his back pocket. The blood drinker was a hunter._

_I enjoyed my drink for quite some time, watching the mortal man play pool. He was cheating other men out of their money but that came as no surprise to me given his condition and occupation. Fortunately for me, American hunters knew nothing of witchfolk and I knew he wouldn't recognize what I was. American hunters always take witches for weak women making deals with demons for power. I sneered into my glass at the thought of people like that bearing the title of witch._

_The blood drinker got into a scuffle with another man. He was caught cheating, not that he seemed to care. Blood drinkers never feel the weight of consequences when they're that far gone. One pushed the other as men do when they've got their fur up. I tried to ignore it until the blood drinker, standing well over six-feet-tall, hurled a powerful arm forward and tossed his opponent across the pool table into the wall without ever touching him. The entire bar went deathly silent at the inhuman display. Angered by the rash blood drinker putting all inhuman folk in danger, such as myself, I affixed a tether to his back with my mind. Then, pretending to escape the melee, I slipped out of the bar, feeling the slack in our tether grow tighter and tighter._

_I stood in the parking lot and touched my heart, words, and mind in a blessing before the goddess. Her silver waning moon hung low tonight. I felt the blood drinker dangling on the other end of my invisible tether like a fish on a line and I waited for the struggle to end. He felt me pulling him out of the bar, out of the fight, but he wanted to release his violent urges. He fought my pull. I was patient. I could wait._

_The waning moon told me a great deal and I knew the blood drinker's time to forgive himself had come. Spells to banish, release, and reverse are done in the time of the waning moon, after all. It's a time to break bad habits, to end bad addictions, and to put a stop to unhealthy relationships. Deep intuition and divination are strongest during this moon phase as well. My Lady brought the blood drinker to me under conditions that I couldn't possibly deny or ignore. It frightened me being so close to the evil blanketing a human soul and smelling the sulfur on his essence but I waited._

_"Who are you?" he asked as he came outside._

_I faced him and straightened my spine. People were much smaller in my day and I stretched myself to the longest five feet that I could._

_"I said who are you?" Demanding shards cut into his voice. That voice had been gentle and scholarly once. I sensed it on him._

_"Constance Rulon," I announced evenly. "You're putting all of our kind in danger in this region with such garish and thoughtless displays of power. You must stop."_

_The blood drinker's mouth turned sideways, a half-smile. "Our kind, huh?"_

_I confirmed it with a nod. "We who walk neither with humanity nor the other world."_

_The smile of disbelief accompanied both a dimple and a bitter scoff. "Oh, I'm all human."_

_"Not for long." I meant it to sound ominous._

_His eyes narrowed at me and I knew I had his attention. "What are you?"_

_"A witch," I said without hesitation._

_For just a breath of a moment, the blood drinker's eyes bulged, and then turned dark and predatory. "Call up your demon."_

_"I don't have one."_

_"Bullshit. Every witch wears a demon collar." The blood drinker bounded toward me suddenly, pressing the point of his blade to the artery pumping life through my throat. "Now call up your demon. I need a drink and you're gonna get it for me."_

_I held my ground without batting an eyelash, though he towered over me and his hand grabbing my dress could easily span the width of my lower back. I held my breath. The standoff went on in slow-motion--at least it felt that way--and the hazel eyes looking down at me reflected greens, yellows, browns, and faint blues, yet no life, love, or joy. He was, indeed, one of the most broken mortals I ever encountered. I wondered at the sort of sustained loss that could have brought him to such a lowly existence._

_"I can help you," I said, careful not to move against the blade._

_The blood drinker laughed. "No one can help me."_

_"I can," I argued in a soft, soothing voice. "I can end your addiction."_

_His mind reeled but he still gripped me tightly like a hostage, or perhaps a life preserver in the angry sea._

_"Tell me your name," I implored._

_I watched the hesitation on his face but he complied. "Sam Winchester." There was hope after all._

_"Well, Sam Winchester, let's start by putting down the knife, all right?" My hand covered his and the grip relaxed over the blade's handle. I judged the right moment to pull his hand down and take the weapon from him. As I tucked his blade into the belt of my dress, I said, "My name is Constance Rulon, like I said. Pleasure to meet you. I'll give your knife back when I'm sure you won't murder me in my bed."_

_"What are you talking about ending my addiction?" he pressed._

_Taking him by the elbow, I led him to the gravel road running between the bar and my home. It's still unbearably hot and muggy even as I write this at three in the morning on my back porch._

_"All addiction is illness," I explained as I walked him home. "All illness can be cured with the right combination of treatment. You know you have a problem. I know you have a problem. We're just going to stop dancing with the devil here and now, all right?"_

_"Wait, my car--"_

_"--I have no taste for automobiles. I only live just up the hill. Kenny Ripley won't tow your automobile. I'll make certain of that once you're settled."_

_"Settled?"_

_I nodded. "Demon blood addition requires twelve days to cure. I have an extra bedroom you may use until you're well again, but I won't be giving back your weapon anytime soon." Looking up at his height as we walked, I explained, "I must protect myself too, you know."_

_"Y-yeah, I get it." Nervous, it seemed, or perhaps already feeling the craving for his next taste of the demonic, Sam ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't really know why I'm going with you."_

_"My Lady leads the hopeless where they need to go," I said simply._

_"Your lady?"_

_We came to my porch and I unlocked the door. "My goddess. Whether you were led to cross my path or I was led to cross yours is irrelevant. Something in the universe determined that you must be saved and I should do the saving. That's why you follow me now. Your intuition knows it's time even if your soul is covered over in demon blood at the moment." I ushered him into my home and my arms raised from my sides, thus raising the fireplace and lights in one sweep. "No matter. You'll be washed clean in twelve days' time."_

_Sam stood in my living room slightly stunned at my collection of antiques. He knew nothing about my true age and probably took me for a collector rather than someone who kept special items from various stages of her life. The southeast corner of my living room caught his eye where my bookshelves contained old volumes about alchemy, botany, horticulture, gemstones, wildlife, mythology, and lore dating back to the fire in 1679. I lost a great deal in that fire but rebuilt my collection of books and resources five times over since then. His interest drew him to that corner of the room and I observed silently as he touched several book spines under his fingertips. His profile faced me just enough to see the glimpse of humanity in his ever-changing eyes. Now the irises were edged in uneven borders of blue. Hazel eyes, I knew, were reserved for the introverted and most sensitive among mortals._

_June 15, 2012_

_Early evening. I slept but four hours last night. Sam got much more sleep after I installed him in my unused bedroom. Good rest will aid him in his recovery but only temper the agony of detoxification just a bit._

_As I sit here writing in the kitchen, I'm waiting for water to boil over the hearth. Tremors and hallucinations have already begun and I've placed magical restraints on Sam for his safety as well as mine. He cannot get out of bed, though he struggles for freedom. I know this is to be expected and it will go on for three days, yet I feel such an urge to take his pain into myself. I hear him shouting now in the bedroom over my head. He's in pain._

_For now, I'm preparing tea. One part Blisswort, two parts Rose, and two parts Chamomile. I have found Blisswort to be quite effective as a relaxant nerve trophorestorative that rebuilds the nerves from the inside out while helping Sam work through any impediments to the release of tension. It'll help with the pain he feels as any noise at all, even in the opposite end of the house, becomes unbearable for him. Rose is especially good for those who suffer from depression and a lack of self-love, both symptoms of which run rampant in this mortal. And I've added Chamomile in hopes that it'll lull him into sleep._

_The real work cannot begin until Sam has completely detoxified. For now, all I can do is try and keep him comfortable while guarding against another relapse._

_June 16, 2012_

_Detoxification continues. I hardly have time to write but I feel it's important to keep a record for Sam as well as myself to look back on what works and what doesn't. He complains about the bitter taste of the Blisswort in his tea (when he's lucid anyway) but he'll drink it with a spoonful of honey stirred into it. The mixture does relieve his pain, he tells me, but the hallucinations have gotten absolutely terrifying, even for me. I've never encountered a mortal with so much regret and guilt for the demonic parasite of addiction to exploit. Prying Sam free of his personal demons is the only way to pry him free of the taste for blood. I'm searching through my books for relief from such awful hallucination. Perhaps there's something in the Grimoire._

_Early this morning, Sam shouted for me, which I initially found hopeful because he hadn't been aware of me during the night. I ran into his room and found his eyes wide with terror, looking toward the wall beyond the window. I saw nothing except the crack in the old plaster splintering diagonally up from the chair rail. It happened in a spellcasting accident in the 1890s that I never repaired since I so rarely used the room._

_"Smoke!" he shouted. "Azazel's coming through the crack! Run, Connie!"_

_I took it as another hallucination, of course, but the name Azazel caught my ear. I'd heard whispers of that demon over the years and I wondered how Sam might have known such a creature. It didn't matter as much as keeping him calm in that moment, however, and I dashed to his bedside, taking his face in my hands. Sweat matted his hair to his skin. He needed a shave too. Still, I used touch to reach through the black veil of demonic hallucination and caressed his cheeks in my effort to hold his attention from the crack in the old wall._

_"Clear his eyes. Clear his mind. Clear his soul and leave it behind." I grabbed the amethyst hanging from my neck down my chest and I pressed the crystal to his feverish brow. My spell chanted on with my eyes closed. "Clear his eyes. Clear his mind. Clear his soul and leave it behind. Clear his eyes. Clear his mind. Clear his soul and leave it behind. Clear his eyes. Clear his mind. Clear his soul and leave it behind."_

_Slowly, his hallucination subsided. Sam's body went limp and he drifted into a deep sleep just as I intended with my spontaneous spell. Unfortunately, I know such spells aren't permanent and the next hallucination stalked the poor man. I brought him a wet washcloth and wiped away the feverish sweat from his face, throat, chest, and arms as he slept._

_Doing those spells on Sam pries open his soul little by little--that is the nature of a witch's work--and I'm beginning to see the gentle man he'd once been before life drove him into the arms of Hell. I keep myself busy as much as possible but I know in the pit of my stomach that I'm getting attached to him. I can't let that happen. I don't really know him except a stray mortal I found who needs someone to nurse him back to health. Once he's well, this life will be mine alone once again._

*****

Sophie set the ribbon to mark her page and closed the book. She needed a break. Until she read about the crack in the wall, the story felt so disconnected and far away from her, but as she looked beyond her window to the far wall, she realized just how close it was. Daddy stayed in that very room when he first came to know Maman.

Wiping away errant tears, she slid off her bed and padded across a rug woven in a pattern of deep blue irises on a white and gold background. There was the white chair rail breaking up a wall painted in dark slate blue. And there was the raised plaster patch just beneath the layer of primer and paint, telling the story of Maman's spellcasting accident nearly a century before Daddy was born. Judging by what she read, the wall hadn't been patched when he fought his addiction in her room. Maybe he'd been the one to cover over the crack.

The tangible link to Daddy's suffering brought fresh tears to her eyes. She bit her lip to keep the confused emotions at bay but couldn't resist covering her palm over the slightly raised plaster. People wouldn't notice the damaged wall unless they looked directly at it but Sophie always noticed it and then she understood why. She felt her father through the paint. He'd been the one who fixed it, perhaps to cover over the reminder of his awful hallucinations.

Sophie wanted to call him just to hear his voice but something told her not to do it. Not yet. She still had more reading to do.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam Winchester's daughter was tall. That was quite the understatement, in fact, but it never really occurred to her until she read a mention of feeling awkward in Daddy's letter. She became more aware of her long legs at school the next day, and then at cheerleading practice when she realized just why she caught flying tumbles instead of making them. Oddly, understanding that her height (five-foot-nine at nearly sixteen years old) came from her mysterious father made her feel closer to him.

Little things caught her attention throughout the day like that. At home, she changed out of her cheerleading practice clothes and, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging over her dresser, really noticed her dimple for the first time. She smiled and touched the dent in her cheek. Daddy had the same dimple when he smiled.

Sophie put on her favorite skinny jeans, a chunky white sweater, and knotted her dark hair on top of her head the way she always did at home. She bounded downstairs, feeling a bit happier than she had the day before when she began reading her mother's journal. True, Daddy was at a scary part of his detox from demon blood in the story, but obviously he survived if she was born. Maybe there was a happy ending to look forward to in her mother's narrative.

"Hi, Maman," she said, finding her mother cleaning up after a spirit reading in the living room. "How was the reading?"

"Pointless," Connie replied. "Centuries and centuries of living bring me nothing new. People always want to know who their soulmate is and then they plunge into despair if I tell them of how their soulmates haven't reincarnated into this lifetime."

"Those people pay our bills," commented Sophie.

"Yes, they do."

It wasn't something she enjoyed discussing though. Connie followed her daughter into the kitchen, where Sophie plucked an apple from the fruit bin in the refrigerator. The stainless steel appliance looked a bit odd in such an antiquated home, yet the old and the new coexisted peacefully there.

Sophie's teeth sank into her apple and wiped the juice dribbling from her chin as she watched her mother poke at the fire. She wondered at mortal girls sometimes, how their mothers drove minivans and SUVs, how they ate microwaved meals, how most of their fathers were gone because of divorce. Her mother hated automobiles, said food heated in microwaves wasn't food, and kept her husband of seventeen years a secret. She made money peddling magical wares to people in the latest wave of New Age fascination and mortals took her for an eccentric hippie. Sophie leaned on the kitchen counter snacking on her apple, starting to understand just how her path as a witch required her to walk the fine line between the past and the future.

"Maman, am I very much like Daddy?" she asked impulsively.

Only a bit startled by the question, Connie stowed the iron firepoker among the other hearth tools and gave Sophie her attention. "Well," she said, speaking Louisiana French, "you're tall like him. Strongly built but tenderhearted. Your face reflects his expressions sometimes, like when you feel pensive or when you laugh wildly." Her thin smile hinted at longing and perhaps even regret. "I had hoped you would look a bit like him. The traits of a witch are so much stronger than a mortal but there is a little bit of him in you and I thank my Lady for that. It keeps him close in our hearts."

"Is that all? Do I only look like him?" It was difficult for Sophie to see herself as a child in that enormous mountain of a man but growing older gave her a new perspective. "I need to know. Am I like him at all?"

Emotion filled Connie's dark eyes. She stared beyond Sophie through the kitchen window, lost in her own memories for a time. "Your desire to find yourself is very much like him," she said eventually. "So is your natural ability to go through your education without much effort. You're both immeasurably stubborn but you think about others over yourselves. I only have to look to your volunteer work at the animal clinic and the children's center to see your father in you."

A content, far more confident smile bloomed over Sophie's mouth. Warmth bloomed in her chest as well. Developing intuitive powers since reaching womanhood gave her signs like warmth for truth and cold for lies. Her mother told her real things that she could stow away in her memory, treasures to uncover in her quieter, older years.

Connie drew nearer and clasped Sophie's face in her hands warmed by the fire. "Have you read more of the journal?"

"Some," Sophie replied, swallowing a bite of her apple.

"Not enough. Go on. Keep reading and you'll understand more. Your birthday is coming faster than you think and it's important to have all the knowledge you require as a mature witch."

"Maman, you sound really old," she clucked with a playful eyeroll.

Connie smiled. "I am old. You will be too one day."

"Don't remind me."

Laughing, Sophie took her apple and retreated upstairs to the sanctuary of her bedroom--the same room where her father recovered from his demon blood addiction nearly two decades before that day.

*****

_June 17, 2012_

_I haven't had a moment to sit down until now. Technically it's after midnight, so I suppose it's really the 18th. Today was the third day of Sam's detoxification and I believe it's coming to an end just as I've been taught. While I've never attended a demon blood detoxification, my mother left enough instruction in the Grimoire to make me confident in it. I feel her guiding me along with my honored goddess. This work has little to do with me except it was me who crossed Sam's path first before he could do irreversible harm to himself. I admit, however, a certain loneliness before bringing Sam home. Perhaps I am wrong and he crossed my path to help me as much as I crossed his path to help him. It's not my place to wonder at my Lady's wishes._

_It's so hot tonight that I'm sitting on my back porch in my nightgown and I'm barefoot. My nightgown has no sleeves and the material is rather thin but everything seems mechanical in this age. A child in Indonesia probably made this garment. I confess longing for the old days when nothing entered our mouths or clothed our bodies without knowing from where it came._

_My mind wanders. I'm worn out and, truthfully, I should sleep while I can but I find myself tossing around fitfully in bed. Sam is asleep now--not the wicked unconsciousness of a man's soul blackened by demon blood addiction, but a man who rests after fighting off the stranglehold and living to tell the tale. His soul is mighty. The weight of it spreads through the room he inhabits but not even he seems to comprehend his own strength. Perhaps he's too broken down by the broken roads that led him to addiction. As I sat at his bedside through the afternoon, I couldn't help but wonder at the man he used to be._

_Late in the afternoon, Sam was able to eat and I took that as a sign that the detoxification drew to an end. I made a pot of tempered, gentle gumbo ahead of time, uncertain of how strong or weak his stomach would be, but he cleaned the first bowl and asked for another. It helped that I added enchanted herbs to stimulate his appetite but I don't think divulging everything about my witchery background is advisable at this stage. I need to win his trust first._

_June 18, 2012_

_Day four. I am writing just outside the bathroom on the hall floor waiting for Sam to finish his shower. He awoke today far more alert (and irritated) than when he stumbled across my path at the bar. It took a great deal of convincing to get me to walk him into the bathroom since his lack of steady food has left him weak and thin but I gave in once he promised to stay in bed after he washed himself clean. Sam seems to prefer order and organization to chaos and the unexpected. So I walked him into the bathroom, his heavy arm around my shoulders, and I insisted on helping him undress. This seemed to embarrass him, but then again, he doesn't know how old I am and how many men I've nursed through war. I don't pretend that Sam isn't an attractive mortal but he is my patient. My mind will not allow nudity to be anything more than a necessity. I'm grateful for my centuries of life giving me the experience to separate necessity from desire._

_3 pm. - I knew it was coming eventually. Sam has begun asking questions about my witchery background and I find myself treading on uncertain ground. He's a hunter and the danger in that is very real for me. If he endures a bad day in his recovery and that knowledge is in his mind at an unsteady moment, I could get attacked. Other witches have paid with their lives for getting too close to hunters, not that Sam appears to know how to kill me. I'm not a mortal woman like the witches he's encountered and likely killed. Such women do not deserve the title I bear._

_It happened when I brought him another bowl of gumbo after his shower. He returned to bed as we agreed and I left off the magical restraints since he hasn't shown any violent impulses in more than twenty four hours. It took a little time for him to realize that he was no longer restrained to the bed. And then the questions came._

_"Are you really a witch or did I hallucinate that part too?"_

_"I am a witch," I said without explaining more._

_Sam pushed the shrimp around his gumbo bowl and seemed to ponder the implications of my kind. I could tell he didn't quite understand since I don't fit with his definition._

_"And you don't have a demon puppet master?"_

_I shook my head._

_"Then where do you get your power?" As soon as the question left his mouth, he sputtered an uncertain laugh. "Oh wait, I get it. You're one of those New Age types playing with crystals and going by the word witch because it sounds romantic."_

_The way his mind worked trying to rationalize what he saw with what he understood amused me. I didn't laugh outright but my thin smile told him just how wrong he was and how little he really understood._

_"How are you feeling?" I asked to divert his attention._

_"Not too strong. Not bad, I guess." His hazel eyes lost some of their blue edges and went darker._

_"False strength from demon blood isn't worth anything. You've got something better than that in your courage and perseverance." I let him think about it for a moment. "The poison fed you all kinds of lies. We both know it. You don't need to spell it out for me. Now what we have to do is get you back on your feet and help you get to know Sam Winchester again."_

_The silence sitting in that bed told me that I hit my mark. I didn't gloat. I didn't boast about how wrong he was to drink the demonic poison because I didn't know what desperation brought him to it. He was, in truth, so beaten down that he had no ego left to fight my point. I had to treat him with a gentle hand, like helping a child learn to take his first steps._

_"You got any family, witchy woman?" he asked after a moment. "Any brothers or sisters?"_

_"I did once. Not anymore though." The less I spoke of that, the better. "And my name is Constance, though I doubt you remember that in the condition I found you at the bar."_

_"Can I call you Connie?"_

_"Sure."_

_Sam nodded and ate more of his gumbo. The question about my family clearly had nothing to do with me personally and everything to do with him but I wasn't about to hint at knowing it. The pieces fit together little by little in my mind and I soon guessed that Sam was alone in the world. The loss of family broke him. Just how and under what circumstances remained a mystery but I expected it all to be shown to be in its due time. Damaged people like him were like wild animals. If I moved too fast or got too close, he'd dash behind a proverbial bush and I'd never see him again. He didn't think he revealed anything to me with that question. I could tell by the calmness in his demeanor. For the time being, I let him think whatever made him comfortable._

_Tomorrow will be the first healing ritual. Any false ideas he has about me as a witch will be put to rest. I suspect it'll take some convincing to get him to participate but it's vital to his recovery. In order for the healing rituals to work, he has to do them by his own free will. I can't force him._

_Goddess be with us._

*****

Sophie let the leather journal droop in her lap. She leaned against her headboard, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Reading about her father taking jabs at her mother being a witch stung but she reminded herself that he simply didn't know yet.

She sighed again and lifted a hand to throw her energy at the fireplace. Logs burst into hot flames and gave her better reading light a the sun fell below the Louisiana horizon. One thing she had inherited from her mother was a distaste for artificial electric light even though she had been born in the smartphone age. At least it was Friday and homework could wait.

With a deep, fortifying breath, Sophie sat up and continued reading.

*****

_June 20, 2012_

_Day six. I had no time to record yesterday's events in this faithful journal but I'm here now. It strikes me as no coincidence that Sam's first healing ritual happened during the new moon of new beginnings. He must recognize this new chance at life in order for this twelve-day process to succeed but I admit worrying over his broken soul. Twelve days hardly seems like enough time to help him mend the shards. It is a test of faith for me._

_Early yesterday morning, I walked to the store and bought Sam a few shirts and jeans since he's no longer completely tethered to the bed. He wasn't awake yet and I put a temporary sleep spell on him to keep him still while I was out of the house. Tammy Chastain's produce stand was open by the time I walked back home, thankfully, because I'm loathed to buy food from grocery chains. Mortals today know nothing about the importance of wonderful food just as they know nothing about what they buy to clothe their bodies. Sam needed new clothes though. Surely he must have a bag of belongings in his automobile but I don't dare go into it (still parked at Ripley's). I sensed devil's traps and hex bags throughout that Impala when I approached. It's not for me to go poking around in his belongings, though I detected the traces of another soul on the automobile. It may not even belong to him._

_Upon telling Sam of the ritual to happen that night and its importance, I could tell he didn't believe me but he appears to have a deep sense of propriety. His manners often strike me as old world despite the rough life hunters are known to endure. He went along with it to be polite--that much was obvious--but it was the most important stage of the battle for me. I thought it would be much harder to get him to agree to the ritual._

_I built the circle twice as wide as the space I normally occupy in my back yard for Sam to have enough space to lie down comfortably. I felt it was important for him to observe my preparations because a logical-minded man like him will cry trickery once he witnessed magic before his own eyes. In fact, I charged him with building a perimeter of white taper candles in silver holders around the sacred space to allow him to see they were made of quite ordinary materials. He was still rather weak from days of lost nutrition but he never complained, nor did he let me see his weakness. I only recognized it through my empathic channels open to his presence._

_"Want me to light 'em up?" he asked once he was nearly finished._

_"No," I said as I carried an armload of wood into the center of the circle. I arranged willow, oak, and ash in a pile, each chosen for sacred properties necessary for Sam's recovery. "The best thing you can do right now is open yourself to trusting me."_

_"I barely know you," he argued._

_I expected that resistance. "Have I caused you injury yet?"_

_"No."_

_"Have I fulfilled everything I said I would do so far?"_

_Reluctantly, he nodded._

_"All right," I said, standing. "Then what reason have you not to trust me now?"_

_Sam's mind turned. I watched it, though I said nothing to point out the fact. He would learn soon enough what sort of power I possessed._

_"What are you getting out of doing this--helping me?" He waivered. Weariness threatened to take him off his feet but he willed himself to remain strong. Always vigilant, always ready for the attack. I wondered if hunters ever stopped to see the beauty in life or if they were all combat machines like Sam._

_"I get the peace from knowing I ensured the survival of a kind and thoughtful creature," I replied after a bit of thought. The response took even me by surprise and I stepped closer as I uttered the words._

_Sam scoffed at it though. "Kind. Thoughtful. You're nuts, witchy woman."_

_"One day you'll want to call me Connie and I'll be grateful for that," I retorted. "Come closer now. We must begin."_

_"Closer?"_

_"Away from the candle flames."_

_My strength of magic pulsed through my upterned hands in an electric burst that called down the western winds. Sam's alert hazel eyes sharpened with the golden flecks of agitation, cutting off the softer greens and blues inherent to emotion. It showed me how he reacted to perceived danger, choosing to become a predator even though it wasn't in his true nature. Someone in his past forced that training upon him. I snapped fingers in both of my hands, which sent sparks flying skyward from the candles bordering our sacred space. I turned to the woodpile and curved my hands over it, drawing sparks toward my open palms. In seconds, the fire roared._

_Sam, of course, struggled to reconcile his perception of reality with the true reality of what I had done. He leaped forward when the candles erupted near his shoes and, wild-eyed, watched me like I could set him on fire next. Of course I could but I took vows long ago to protect life, not destroy it. If he cared to learn someday, perhaps I would tell him, supposing our association continues after his strength returns. Analyzing exactly why I care for this hunter has proved difficult under the best circumstances and I prefer not to recount the confusion now._

_Bringing Sam to heel in the sacred circle aftter my display of power proved rather difficult. I took him by the wrist but he shrugged me off, staring down at me from his great height with the questions of every mortal before him in his eyes. Who are you? What are you? I waited for a breath and then I reached for his wrist again--gentler that time, like showing a wild creature my true nonthreatening nature. He acquiesced, even taking my hand into his, and I led him wordlessly to lie on the ground near the fire where the sacred timbers would envelop him in a healing glow. The firelight in his eyes just before they fell shut proved his inner will to survive even if his outward darkness made him a desolate man consumed by loss and regret._

_I invited the elements of the cardinal directions to aid my labors. I invited the goddess to be with Sam more than myself, for I relied on the teachings of my mother, her mother, and her mothers before to guide me._

_To my knees I fell and, with a mortar and pestle filled with crushed bone, water, and sea salt in my hands, I mixed the Life Potion while reciting my intentions to all spirits who were there to listen. I appealed to the witches who now walked the Underworld, telling of a great and mighty soul that must be purified. Movement like a mirage of figures just outside of the circle rose in my awareness and Sam seemed to feel watched as well. His eyes popped open, still reflecting harsh gold in the hazel, and I knew the figures of my ancestors had him on edge. His head and shoulders lifted off the ground._

_"Shh," I pleaded in a whisper, a free hand pressed over his heart. "I know you destroy spirits in your duties but these are here to help us."_

_Sam wrestled his instincts into submission with a slow nod. His body relaxed, allowing me to continue my work. I rose high on my knees, sprinkling the Life Potion over his brow, his throat, his chest, his stomach, and each of his legs. Bone, water, and sea salt bring to the soul all that represents human birth, life, and rejuvination. I observed the potion seep into his clothes and into his skin as if his soul had been so starved for the basic fundamentals of life, making me wonder with a shudder at the imbalance of death Sam must have been exposed to since his birth. It became clear to me then that my purpose in removing the cravings for toxic demon blood from his being was just a small part in restoring the balance between life and death deep within his consciousness. The more I understood of Sam's struggle (even without specific information), the stronger my inner power as a witch grew. I knew I was doing the right thing for him._

_We repositioned ourselves at my behest to sit side by side before the fire once his body drank up all of the Life Potion remaining in my mortar. I directed him to write the most pressing self-loathing thought he wanted to expel from his mind on a slip of parchment, which he did after a lengthy bout of quiet contemplation. I still don't know what he wrote but this was never about me._

_When he wrote the thing he wanted to expel from his inner workings, I told him to hold that thought in his mind and immerse in the stinking rot of that evil. He looked at me like I led him down a dangerous road until I explained that he couldn't force it away by a grasp of fingertips. He had to hold whatever made him drink demon blood in his fist to rid himself of it. So he closed his eyes with the parchment wadded in his fist. I remained still until I saw a gray pallor creep over his stern features. That was the moment._

_"Now," I bade him._

_Sam tossed the parchment wad up above the peaks of the crackling flames. It hovered there, suspended in the air without a finger to support it. Astonished, Sam's eyes darted from the floating crumbled parchment to my face. Recognition smoothed the crease between his eyes and he understood my fixed gaze meant I held his poisonous secret over the fire by the power of my magic. He stared openly with the innocent wonderment of a child, yet tried to make sense of it with his scholarly mind all in the same moment._

_Under my breath, though he surely saw my lips moving, I muttered the banishment spell. "Away, away, by the power of our Lord and Lady, I send thee, darkness, back to the blackness. Away, away, by the power of the elements, I bid thee, darkness, never to return unto Sam Winchester's consciousness. Be gone, be empty, be contained, for thou hast no power in his presence."_

_I repeated the spell three times. By the third turn, the edges of the parchment began to smolder as it hovered over the fire, and then a puff of smoke popped into a flame. It disintegrated before Sam's watchful eye, always looking for signs of trickery on my part. Embers of his poisonous thoughts floated upward in the night air, caught by the breeze and scattered into the magic he was only just beginning to understand._

_It seemed to be enough for the first ritual. I blessed his heart, his mouth, and his brow with sea salted water and a pinch of powdered bone to seal his soul off from those unwelcome self-loathing impulses making their return in the night. I made offerings to the elements and my goddess for being present during such important work, even allowing Sam to say thank you as well. He could still see the spirits of my ancestors lingering around and I attributed that heightened sight to the signs I recognized in him before. Mortals with hazel and blue eyes were the most sensitive of them all. He observed intently as I lowered the fire in synchronization with my lowered hands, and then repeating the same on the candles. It didn't need to be said that the ritual drew to a close. Clearly he'd been exposed to enough of the unseen world to recognize a certain pattern about it. We gathered up the ritual tools together in silence and went indoors._

_After a time, Sam finally spoke. "You're not kidding, huh? About the witch thing."_

_"No. I never lie about it," I said._

_"I've never seen anything like it. The witches I've ... they didn't have this kind of power at all. They just did tricks their demons taught them, you know?"_

_"I know."_

_He turned things over in his mind in a quiet repose. "I'm, uh, I'm really worn out. I think I need to go back to bed."_

_I nodded. "It's a good idea."_

_There was a lot he wanted to say but he still had a lot to work out in his mind. I offered a silent smile and didn't push him, though I wanted to ask if he felt any different. The affects of ritual afterward were lacking in the Grimoire and I didn't quite know what to expect. Would he improve instantly? Would it work at all to rid him of the addiction? Faith in myself wavered as I looked up at his eyes. Some green and the slightest hint of blue came in around the edges as he looked back at me and I nearly let out an audible sigh of relief. The fight was on my side._

_"Night, Connie," he said in a tone I hadn't heard in his throat since he arrived. He wore sincerity well._

_"Sleep well, Sam."_

_June 21, 2012_

_Summer solstice. Ordinarily I would be enjoying my feast day and doing ritual for my Lady, but more practical matters need attention. Sam woke late this morning with a raging appetite that required my trek into town for meats rich in iron and protein. I still fee like his body has been starved and the amount he eats of late only adds to my suspicions. If he had been surviving on demon blood and alcohol alone, it could be much longer than this twelve day period before I'm able to restore the life balance._

_I brought him a midday meal in bed. It's better for him to rest as much as possible between ritual nights as they will grow more taxing on him as we pry off the demonic claw around his soul. Steak and eggs went over well. He was even more pleased when we talked and I mentioned that I prefer organic food stalls by local sellers to grocery stores. This is an unexpected commonality and I cannot lie--it pleases me a great deal. There is a richness and depth to this man's soul that seems to have been taken for granted in his old life. I want to know more about him._

_11 pm. - I don't have much time to write. Sam had a horrific seizure and I'm overcome by guilt and regret because I fear I caused it. We had argued when it happened._

_At supper time, Sam joined me in the kitchen while I cooked a roast and red potatoes. We spoke of the events of the previous night and I sensed how uncertain he was, as if he doesn't trust his own vision. Everything was fine until I apparently made the mistake of asking about his family. He said he had a brother in past tense but then he clammed up. My curiosity got the better of me and I pushed him to tell me more about his background. I thought it would be good for him to confide in me but he really doesn't like to share pieces of himself._

_He became angry and yelled, "You can't expect me to tell you my secrets when I know nothing about you except your name and that you've got these crazy powers! I don't know you!"_

_"I don't know you either!" I yelled back. "I'm trying to know you! Can't you see that?"_

_"Then why don't you hold a conversation without sounding like a New Age guru? I know that's not you! You're a sellout! You sell a watered down version of yourself to people!"_

_"I don't know how to do that, talk to people and share myself! I've been alone for the majority of my life!"_

_"Well, so have I!"_

_I was shaking by that point. I couldn't make sense of why he had me so unhinged or how we escalated so quickly into shouts. The truth was we were yelling from the same perspective, standing on the edge of a cliff shouting into the emptiness in search of someone to understand that kind of profound solitude. We were the same. Seeing that in each other placed our fears under a magnifying glass and we didn't like seeing just how inept we were at human connection because of our lives circumstances._

_To collect myself, I turned my back and leaned over the deep farm sink. I gripped the rim and used the cold porcelain to ground myself in the moment. Losing control of myself wasn't going to help Sam and I knew his unwell condition meant I had to be the bigger person. I wasn't even angry at him. I was angry at myself._

_But my search for peace shattered in the next instant. A sickening thud fell in a heap behind me and I spun on my heels only to see Sam sprawled on my kitchen floor. His body twitched and jerked._

_"Sam!"_

_I don't know why I shouted his name because he clearly couldn't hear me in that condition. I dashed across the room in just a few strides and fell at his side. Gathering him up close to my chest proved difficult given his solid build but I clutched him as he endured the tremors._

_Blood oozed from his mouth, I noticed, and I turned him to the side so he wouldn't suffocate. Had I done this to him? Had I injured him having never done the ritual before? The blood drained from his mouth and spread across the tiles. Soon blood seeped through his nose as well and the pool running over the floor turned black. It hit me all at once then. The blood didn't belong to Sam. His body expelled the demonic poison and the only way it could happen was through the ritual I did. His anger triggered the expulsion, I guessed. I still don't know._

_It took a full hour for Sam to come around again. He has been disoriented and feverish ever since in addition to complaining of the pain he had during the detoxification period. I'm making more pain relief tea right now. I'm exhausted, to be honest, but he needs me and ... the truth is ... I want to see him through this. I care about him. After holding him close to my chest while his body went through the seizure, I can truly admit that I care for him._

_I must go and wash the blood off my kitchen floor before the tea water boils. Goddess give me strength. Goddess see Sam through these expulsion seizures. I didn't know this would happen. I feel terrible for him._

*****

Tears blurred Sophie's eyes. She put down the journal, resolving not to read anymore that night. It had grown dark when she wasn't looking and she thought of her mother enduring that fear alone in the darkness nearly twenty years before.

Daddy suffered. She had never guessed how much before but reading about his struggle to get clean somehow deepened her love for him. In her childhood, he'd been a mysterious figure like a knight on a white horse riding into Louisiana a few times every year bearing gifts. Headed toward womanhood (though witches matures faster than mortals), my love for Daddy seemed to reach through the earth and take root in something tangible. Something real.

Would she be as strong as Daddy if she had to go through something horrible like that? Would she survive?

Most importantly, would there be someone to love her as much as her mother clearly loved him? Sophie doubted it. She didn't see much worth loving in herself--not the way her patents worshiped each other. Witches led solitary lives. She had to remember that her mother was quite unusual among unusual people.

Sleep overcame Sophie early that night. Her dreams turned red and black like the blood in her father.


	4. Chapter 4

Buzzing. Gold metal vibrating against a wood surface lurched Sophie from the warm embrace of sleep. Twisted, confused dreams plagued her for most of the night even after she woke long enough to put on her nightgown and crawl under the covers. She blindly groped across her nightstand until her fingers touched the cell phone.

"Hello?" she muttered half into the pillow.

"Hey Soph! What's with you? Still in bed? Girl, it's almost lunchtime!" It was Julie, the one girl on the cheerleading squad that she actually liked outside of school.

"I didn't get much sleep," she said.

"Oh, were you out late with Jackson?"

"No, I stayed home."

Julie went quiet for a second and it nearly lulled Sophie back to sleep. "Soph, why don't you get dressed and I'll come pick you up, okay?" Her tone changed as if she sensed the strain in Sophie from learning about her father even if Julie didn't know anything about him.

Sophie leaned up on her elbow, thinking about it. Maybe she could trust her friend with something that cut deeper than shopping, homework, and cheerleading practice. There was a reason, after all, that she even let Julie into her life. She had a natural intuitive sense about her as if she'd lived more life than other juniors in their high school had. They had never really talked about their pasts though. It was as if their friendship existed in every present moment rather than looking ahead or looking to the past.

"Yeah, okay. Let's go get food," Sophie said.

"Cool. I'm on my way."

She threw an oatmeal colored sweater over her head and tugged dark-washed skinny jeans up slender legs as she bounded downstairs, eager to get out of the house for a while. Julie showed up within minutes in her mother's car and, with a shout to her mother that she was going out with a friend, Sophie escaped. At least, it felt like making a break from prison even if it was self-imposed.

The girls settled on going to a Cajun restaurant popular with younger people in their part of Louisiana. There, Sophie soon found herself unburdening her heart as best as she could without telling Julie that she was a semi-immortal witch and her father was a man who hunted monsters and demons. Simply letting it out of her system relieved her mind and she began to see things more clearly before Julie even began to respond. Her mother had always raised her with the attitude that immortals were set above humans, that they couldn't possibly be relied upon for anything important, but she disagreed. She had a best friend. She had a boyfriend. Those were things her mother lacked. Yes, she was married to Sophie's father but he had been absent for most of her childhood. Consistent relationships were important and Sophie knew that even at such a young age--even younger by proportion given her expected lifespan.

"Wait, so lemme get this straight." Julie paused long enough to slurp from her soda straw. "Your mom and dad are still married but he lives where?"

"Kansas."

"Kansas. And you didn't know this whole time your dad's an addict?"

"Was an addict," corrected Sophie. "My mom said he's been clean since before I was born. She helped him get off his drug, and then she got pregnant with me, I guess. I don't know exactly when they got married or anything. I didn't even know I had an uncle. I mean, my uncle's married to a guy and they have kids too. I have cousins I don't even know. It's a lot. It's...." Her voice trailed off, overwhelmed, and she pushed a pile of barbecued pulled pork around her plate without eating a bite.

"Oh, well having a gay uncle's the most normal thing I've heard you mention. Everybody's got one of those." Julie had a way of picking out the most trendy point in any discussion, so Sophie let it go, reminding herself that she didn't have the whole story and never could.

She took a bite of her pulled pork but didn't taste much. "Were you okay without your dad?"

Shrugging, Julie glanced around the restaurant as if self-conscious of the topic shifting to her. "I guess. I never thought about it much. Not like I ever knew him." She turned things back on Sophie quite masterfully. "But hey, your dad obviously gives a shit about you if he's gone to all this trouble to make sure you know what really happened. That's more than I can say for my deadbeat sperm donor."

"Really?"

"Sure. Look, I dunno why your folks don't live together but it seems like your dad does the best he can. Obviously your mom still loves him too. I've never seen any stray older men around your house or anything."

That much was true. Constance Rulon-Winchester never once sought companionship elsewhere as much as Sophie knew. "So you think I should keep going with the diary."

"Yup. You gonna eat all this?" Her friend swiped a couple of fries and popped them into her mouth. "I figure you might as well get to know your pops while you can and give the guy a chance. Look at Jackson. His mom took off when he was a little kid and by the time they hooked up again, she was dying. You know." Her face scrunched with the force of a sudden thought. "How come you're not talking to Jackson about this?"

"Well, I figured it was different. You're a girl without a dad like me. He's a guy without his mom." Talking to her boyfriend about it made her uncomfortable, though she didn't quite know why. Jackson had a way of seeing through her and she didn't want to let too much truth slip through the levee, so to speak. She admitted a bit of truth in that moment, however. "I've been staying away from people the last few days, especially him. I know he won't like it but this is sucking the life out of me. I'm not much of a fun girlfriend right now."

"If he loves you, he'll want you at your worst as much as your best."

The way she said it, so casual and absent like an afterthought, stunned Sophie into silence for a long moment. Julie didn't seem to notice as she left the table to refill her soda, not that it was surprising how she didn't even recognize her rare moments of true insight.

What she said hit Sophia in two dull aching places in her heart though. She had been avoiding both her boyfriend and her father because she didn't want either of them to know she suffered. It had been one thing to know her father was out there somewhere when she was a little girl, which her mother made sound romantic and adventurous, but it was quite another to understand his distance had been for her own protection. She didn't want Jackson or Daddy to know it bothered her so much that her very existence--the type of creature she was--caused a permanent fracture in her family life. She didn't want anyone to know her father had addiction issues. Demon blood was infinitely worse than any heroin, cocaine, meth cocktail the most skilled dealer could sell. If she couldn't stomach the trauma in her father's life in stride, then Jackson would certainly start hating her moodiness and dump her. Then Daddy wouldn't trust her to keep his legacy. And, Sophia knew, keeping Sam Winchester's legacy would fall on her shoulders. She would live centuries longer than his brother or his children--people she didn't even know.

Determination and swallowed emotions followed Sophie home after lunch with her friend. The ability to keep her heart perfectly camouflaged didn't seem like any skill her mother possessed. She wondered how her father coped with strain, whether he wore it on his sleeve or stowed away deep in his gut. It stood to reason that her cool reserve under pressure had been inherited from her mortal father's strength. Yes, she liked that. She clung to the idea.

Alone in her bedroom that afternoon, Sophie opened the leather bound diary to the silk ribbon marking her place.

*****

_June 24, 2012_

_Waxing crescent moon. The learning curve with a man going through detoxification and expulsion of demon poison has left me too drained to write in my faithful book each night. I haven't particularly felt an overwhelming desire to relive Sam's struggles at the end of each day either. We are winning the war little by little though. His tenacity and strength has even carried me through, yet I'm supposed to be the one carrying him through the fire._

_Sam's sitting across from me at the kitchen table at this moment. He likes to eat in peace and quiet, I've learned, and I'm happy to oblige as long as he takes nourishment. I suspect there's a bit of a Scot in him by how much he likes old-fashioned parritch. Again, Sam draws to mind the breed of man long since extinct from my world and the enigma of how he came to be enthralls me. I must stay focused._

_There hasn't been any effort on Sam's part to reach out to family or friends in spite of how long he's been recovering under my roof, which I find quite peculiar. Questioning him about it the day before yesterday sent him into stern silence and then his raw emotional state brought on another seizure. Two more seizures have followed since then and they have become our new normal, a fact that probably upsets me more than him. He has no memory of his seizures until they're over, leaving me to watch the horror unfold alone. I have noticed a pattern with their onset though. Facing truth and confronting past trauma purges more demon blood from his system, which tells me the poison's grip on him came from denial and suppression. Denial of what, I'm uncertain._

_The nightly rituals continue. Sam still sometimes calls me witchy woman but I believe he's relaxing as time passes and he sees I'm not going to hurt him. Hearing him call me Connie, looking at me like a normal living thing, is admittedly more gratifying than any thanks he could offer. Dare I say, we have become friends amid this impossible situation._

_June 25, 2012_

_People in town are readying the commercial streets for Independence Day. It's odd for me. I forget about it every year until the red, white, and blue bunting gets draped over lamp posts and flags get planted in every yard. I'm older than this country they're celebrating and most of these mortals conveniently forget how many decades some Southern cities went without acknowledging this patriotic day. I'm acquainted with older women in Vicksburg, for example, who still refuse to celebrate, remembering how the federal government killed their great grandfathers in the Civil War. I do absolutely feel like a foreigner in this country even though I've lived here since this continent was divided colonies for the crowned heads of Europe. This is a celebration of rebellion in a wild land in my eyes. Even so, Sam asked for a certain brand of hot tea and I ventured into town for him._

_I've managed to turn the key a bit more in Sam's locked heart. It appears that his mind operates on the barter system--if I expect truth from him, I must be willing to offer it first. It's difficult to give him my truth because it means trying to explain the immortality inherent to my kind. I think, after talking to him late into the night, Sam just might be one human man capable of understanding or even accepting my reality. As much as it excites me, I constantly remind myself that this is about Sam's recovery from demon blood addiction and not my loneliness._

_Last night, we sat in the long hours of solitary darkness after his cleansing ritual. The spirits of my witch mothers linger around much longer each night and, for a time, he perched on the rocking chair beside mine on the back porch watching their liquidy silhouettes moving through the yard. He greeted them with suspicion and fear for the first few nights of our ritual work, but as with me, he's slowly coming to realize they're willing to help him rather than hurt him. Of course, they're not trapped between worlds but visiting at my behest instead, which skews Sam's mortal perception of their appearance. He cannot communicate with them either but he says he sees their figures like gas vapors moving through the yard. This is a highly sensitive mortal. He should not perceive them at all, yet his telling eye color edges in a sky blue halo around his hazel irises prone to all sensitive mortals._

_I took my opportunity, recognizing his calm presence as he lazily rocked on my porch. "Is there anyone you'd like me to call?"_

_"No." At first Sam didn't elaborate and I nearly counted the attempt as another failure to get him to unburden himself. But then, he began to speak. "My brother's gone. So is his, um, his friend. It was over a month ago now, I guess. They went together and I'm weirdly grateful for that but I don't ... I don't know where they...." He stopped short and I sensed his wall rebuilding around him._

_"Did they love each other very much?" I asked, trying to divert him to life rather than death._

_He turned and eyed me in surprise. "Was I that obvious?"_

_"Oh, were they a secret?"_

_"Yeah," he chuckled, "so big of a secret that they tried to keep it from each other."_

_I smiled and kept still. It was the most he'd spoken of his family thus far and I didn't want to frighten him away too quick. "And what of you? Have you got any secret lovers? I'm quite discreet. She could visit you here ... or he ... and you won't be bothered."_

_"It'd be a she," replied Sam, catching my fishing for answers, "but I don't have anyone. Thanks though. Gotta learn to live on my own now, I guess. I did it in college before...." He trailed off again, lost in thought._

_I said nothing but I burned with curiosity._

_Sam straightened in the porch rocker as if waking from a long-buried memory. His mouth formed a lopsided smile that charmed me in its boyish light. "I had someone once. I was gonna ask her to marry me but she died. She was killed the same way my mother was killed--because of me."_

_"You?" My brow arched. I felt it and then forced my face to still, to let him tell his story at a pace comfortable for him._

_"Yep." He averted his eyes to the yard, where my with mothers ceased their private gathering to observe his confession in return. "Look, you're a witch, right? You know about stuff?"_

_"Yes...." I replied cautiously, though I wasn't quite sure what he meant._

_"My mom was killed by a demon. She was a hunter from a huge family of hunters but I didn't know that for years. Mom walked in on a demon feeding me blood and ... and, well, she died trying to protect me. That same demon killed my Jess when we were in college." Sam broke off and his jaw clenched, damming up threatened emotion, which put me on edge for another seizure. "Going after the demon that killed my mom and my girl's how I got dragged back into hunting. I ... I think I'm done now. I mean, I want to be done. I've lost my entire family."_

_I nodded. "So have I."_

_Looking me directly in the eye wasn't common for Sam but he did in that moment and I felt my breath stutter. My willingness to barter personal truth for personal truth made him observe me through unguarded eyes lacking all yellow hue around the pupils. Yellow hinted at his agitation and guarded fear. Instead, his eyes dulled into a soft green shade edged by sensitive blue. I had gotten him to trust me and it showed._

_"There was a fire," I said carefully._

_"Same here," he replied, nodding slowly. "Demon fires."_

_"This fire was entirely mortal, I'm afraid. We had a lovely stone cottage in Vannes--that's on the Brittany coast in France--and we lived there happily for generations. We nearly made it out of the witch hunting fever before the Enlightenment came into fashion."_

_"The Enlightenment? Are you talking about the eighteenth century?"_

_I looked at him without response, debating whether I should lie about my age. I could just as easily tell him it was my ancestors who died in the fading days of witch hysteria but he already knew I was describing my own life. Sam was, in my estimation, far too intelligent to buy my usual stories. I considered doing a glamour spell. It'd be easy to use my magic to trick him into believing anything I pleased. But then I remembered the way he trusted me to know his origins as a hunter just a few moments ago and I found myself unable to deceive him._

_Sam's eyes narrowed and his head tilted. "Connie?"_

_That mortal man looking so confused in that moment mattered to me. My moral worth in his eyes was important. I licked my lips, suddenly self-conscious of my immortality and how it might repulse him, but I pressed ahead._

_"I lost my family in 1722. I was a young witchling and so were my three sisters. The people of Vannes became suspicious and paranoid when my mother took shelter from a violent storm in a church, where her skin bubbled with a horrific rash. We're not evil and true witches have no association with the so-called devil, but angels long ago cursed us to react with sickness in the Christian god's territory. It goes back to wars between gods and goddesses thousands of years ago, making various kinds of people and mortals the spoils of war. We are but territory traded and acquired by a number of deities. So, while my kind isn't evil, we cannot touch Christian territory without falling ill. My mother's body reacted before a number of witnesses. To make a very long story short, I only survived because I was away delivering a child in another village up the coast. I found my home burned to the ground and the charred bodies of my mother, father, and three sisters."_

_Sam took in my story. He struggled to reconcile my truth and he felt guilty about his doubts--I saw it plainly in his features. "Are you...." He swallowed and glanced at the spirits gathered out in the yard. "Are you a vampire? I know vampires can live for centuries but I...."_

_Laughter rippled through my throat. "Non, non!" Humor brought me back to speaking French momentarily until I caught my breath. "My kind are called Les Sorcières Du Vieux Sang."_

_"Witches of the Old Blood," Sam said thoughtfully._

_"You speak French." It impressed me. My pulse fluttered in the side of my throat to my wrists and back._

_"Some." Sam shrugged. His mind was entirely focused on the details while my ridiculous heartbeat galloped through my body. "If you're immortal, then how did a house fire kill your family?"_

_"I'm not entirely immortal. It doesn't mean invincibility. It means my lifespan reaches into centuries but the right elements can kill me, like a fire set by a holy man or coming into contact with water from the Sea of Galilee." What had I done? I'd just hand delivered instructions to a hunter about exactly how to kill me. Such facts had never passed my lips out loud and I recoiled once I said it._

_I could tell there were so many questions in Sam's eyes but he swallowed them back. Perhaps he knew what it felt like for people to pepper him with probing questions about the deaths of his loved ones and restrained himself from doing that to me too. He stared at me for a long time but I couldn't bear to look at him after telling him about my family. My precious sisters weren't even old enough to let their powers mature. Only I had gone through the ascension ritual upon reaching my majority, crossing the threshold from witchling to mature witch. Our family Grimoire had been on my person at the time of the fire and I believed my Lady goddess chose me to carry on the Rulon craft in the New World. Here I have lived ever since, always haunted by those dear little girls, my powerful mother, and my giving father._

_I hadn't realized how quiet I became or how my hands fidgeted in my lap. Warm fingers as long as they were strong and calloused stretched around both of my hands in one solid grasp. I peered down at Sam holding my hands and then peered up at his face etched with empathy and concern. He understood my losses as much as I understood his even if our families were separated by thousands of miles and two hundred fifty years. I'd been feeling rather old and imprisoned by my solitary life for decades but Sam infused my blood with the thrill of human contact._

_This is edging on dangerous territory for me. I can't allow myself to grow too attached to Sam because he'll return to his life once he's well enough to survive the blood cravings. He was a human being, not a stray dog with an injury for me to heal and then adopt him once his sweet face wins my heart. Even so, we said nothing and remained linked by his hand over both of mine for quite some time. He resumed rocking after a while, which rocked my chair too. We were that close._

_I tried not to be so aware of it but I noticed the spirits of my witch mothers made a hasty exit when he reached for me. It has occurred to me that I should consider seeking their counsel in private because the way they departed so suddenly makes me nervous. They left as if Sam and I require privacy. That's ridiculous, of course. Sam's my patient and I'm nursing him through demon blood addiction. There's nothing about his time in my home that requires privacy. Our confidences shared on my back porch are part of his purging process--a truth for a truth--and my growing understanding of how to approach his trauma prevented a siezure. I'll do what it takes to help him but it has nothing to do with me._

*****

"Oh come on, Maman!"

Slapping the diary shut after a long read, Sophie rolled her eyes and tossed it in her nightstand drawer. She wanted to read more but her eyes blurred from that antiquated scrawl her mother used. The denial reached ridiculous levels in those last few paragraphs and Sophie couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh or shake her younger mother by the shoulders. It was nice, she decided, seeing her father being attentive and intelligent toward her mother though. For once, Sophie didn't end a reading session with tears streaming down her face, upset by her father's suffering. He seemed okay at the end of June.

One thing didn't make sense to her. The conversation her mother recorded suggested that the mysterious uncle and his partner were dead as of 2012, but in the letter she'd gotten from her father not long ago, he wrote about his brother in the present tense. There were children between Uncle Dean and his partner too, but Daddy told Maman nothing to suggest that in their back porch chat.

So was Uncle Dean dead or not?

Sophie rubbed her eyes and decided she couldn't read any more no matter how much she wanted to know the truth. She hopped off her bed and stretched her arms high over her head, lengthening an already long body for her age. Stepping on her tiptoes made her miss ballet, she thought absently.

Downstairs, Sophie found her mother gone. A note on the kitchen table indicated she'd gone to pick up food for supper.

She passed through the garden door and wandered onto the back porch. Her bare feet padded over moist wood boards making up that old porch and she smelled rain in the air. To the west, the Louisiana sun dipped toward the horizon while dark, billowing clouds rolled in from the south. The night promised storms, not that Sophie minded. Lightning charged her witchling powers, giving her a taste of what she'd become upon reaching her full maturity.

There stood the two rocking chairs side by side with a small table in between for drinks. Sophie knew they were the same chairs because Maman never got rid of anything Daddy touched. She also knew the one on the left closer to the garden door had been her father's chair because her mother never used it. Witches were sentimental people who often preserved their loved one's possessions like relics. Sophie lowered herself into the rocking chair closest to the door where her father sat more than fifteen years before, where he confessed a demon was responsible for his mother's death as well as another girl he'd loved. A sharp stab of rage took Sophie by surprise as it dawned on her that a demon robbed her of any chance of knowing her own grandmother. The evil stretched into another generation of Winchesters.

Leaning back in Daddy's rocking chair gave her a view of the garden. Spirits often occupied that yard in her childhood. They were her mother's advisors but none spoke to her. She wondered what spirits would come to her and how long it would take to build her own spirit counsel. They would be the ones to keep her company decades from now when the present generation of her loved ones would die away. Sophie began to understand the loneliness her mother described in her diary and how it made her reluctant to reach out for mortal company. Mortal love wouldn't last long before they got old and died. Part of her felt the dull ache of her parents' lives plagued by death and mourned the grandparents she'd never meet.

Sophie took her phone from her pocket and found her father in the contacts. "Hi Daddy," she typed. "Your chair on the back porch needs work. I'm going to refinish it like new for when you visit again. Love you."


	5. Chapter 5

It occurred to Sophie a little too late that she had no idea how to refinish a rocking chair or repair loose parts. There she stood in the wood stains, finishes, and paints aisle in the hardware store with an impossibly blank stare.

Jackson was late--pretty typical--but that never really bothered her. Crabbing at him for lagging behind with his buddies on a Tuesday afternoon hardly seemed fair since she hadn't been spending time with him in days. The reason weighed down the backpack slung over one shoulder. She carried her mother's journal between a calculus book and an art history book to read paragraphs here and there at lunch or during class. In truth, Sophie never took school too seriously. Those twelve years made up only a tiny fraction of her expected lifespan and only taught her how to blend in with human society. Her real education involved herbs, energy, healing arts, spirit communication, ancient dead languages, the history of her people, and the ethical theory of magic.

"Can I help you find anything, miss?"

Turning, Sophie gave the Cajun clerk an automatic smile reserved for all of her interaction with unknown mortals. Her smile turned more sincere upon reading gentleness in the clerk's velvety brown eyes. "Oh, I think I'm okay for now," she said. "I'm meeting my boyfriend here but he's late."

"Oh yeah," laughed the clerk as she twisted a tightly wound coil of black hair around her finger. "Southern boys operate on their own clocks."

"Yep, they do."

"Well, give a shout if you need help with anything."

"Thanks."

As the clerk with wild Cajun hair drifted off to other customers, Sophie decided to use the sudden free time, thanks to her boyfriend, to read more of the journal. The idea of feeling closer to her father through her mother's story while buying supplies to repair his rocking chair. She could have made the repairs with her internal magic, of course, but there was something wonderfully satisfying about getting her hands dirty and roughened with physical work. And anyway, Jackson got really excited when she asked for help, like he felt strong and essential to her livelihood. Sophie wasn't exactly the kind of girl to need help with anything but she couldn't very well explain to her boyfriend that basic mortal tasks still baffled her.

Sophie regretted stepping outside as soon as the blast of winter air hit her, but it somehow seemed less weird than crouching against a shelf of nails reading an antique leather book. She crossed the street to the little dog park on the opposite corner where she'd certainly see Jackson pull into the hardware store but still give her a place to sit. A couple of people braved the cold and played with their dogs as Sophie took over a wooden park bench. She dropped her backpack next to her and fished out the journal, opening it to the marked page.

*****

_June 28, 2012_

_As of this night, Sam has been lodging in my home for exactly two weeks. Yesterday morning there was another seizure. I'm confused and apprehensive about the state of his recovery because everything in the Grimoire indicates he should have been completely purged of the demonic toxin by the twelfth night's ritual. It was the final cleansing ritual in the cycle recorded in the Grimoire, yet Sam still endures bloodletting seizures. I'm exhausted and even writing this paragraph sounds stunted and repetitive. I have been thinking in circles for days._

_Sam, however, doesn't seem to blame my skills as a witch at all. He merely shrugs when I express my dismay and he has a peculiar habit of lopsided smiles._

_"Nothing ever goes the way we plan, Connie," he said yesterday afternoon. "I don't know a lot about your kind of witchcraft but I've been a hunter since I could walk. Ghosts, monsters, angels, demon, whatever. Magick too. I've seen a lot. If something goes according to Plan A, I don't trust it. Not at all. I'm not in my comfort zone 'till I'm in Plan C or D."_

_I asked him if he still had faith in my healing skills. I have been losing more faith in myself each time he collapses and I'm powerless to do anything except hold him as the black blood drains from his nose and mouth._

_Sam only smiled again and bent over the kitchen counter (he's so tall that bending over puts him nearly nose to nose with me). He said, "You're the big mighty witch here, aren't you? If you can't fix me, then I guess I'm a lost cause." He let out a little laugh, both from his mouth and his eyes, and he shoved at my shoulder with his. I realized his ability to touch humor was new. I looked his way, offering my own terrible attempt at a smile to make him feel better. "Connie, don't look so defeated. Look at it this way. I went for a jog this morning. Do you know how long it's been since I've done that?"_

_I shook my head._

_"Not since before Bobby died. He ... well ... Bobby kind of raised me."_

_And so, it seems I've been looking at this the wrong way, or overlooking the obvious. I've been so concerned about Sam's body and the ravages of his addiction on it that I failed to notice the tattered pieces of his soul mending together again._

*****

"Whatcha doin', pretty girl?"

Sophie jumped back hard against the park bench the second Jackson's voice hit her ears. She snapped the journal shut before he could see any words and covered the fright over with a dazzling smile.

"Hey, baby."

"What's that? Library book?" he asked conversationally.

"Yeah," she lied. "I've got a history paper due Friday."

Jackson wasn't very tall, nor was he exceptionally built like the guys on the football team, but he was the only guy in school secure in himself enough to let her feel small in his arms. That was no easy task for a guy who had a girlfriend a full two inches taller. It was his character and strength of heart that mattered. Seeing him there with his hands jammed in his pockets and his black hair curling ridiculously to one side opened a hole in a wall that she didn't know she'd been building for days.

"Oh, that's where you've been."

"Yeah." With an easier smile than she felt, Sophie hopped to her feet and shoved the journal into her backpack. She popped a cheerful kiss on Jackson's lip. "Thanks for helping me with the rocking chair. My mom's got too much to do lately, so I--"

He held up a silencing hand. "You don't gotta explain. You called. I'm here. Easy."

It melted her unexpectedly and her head inclined softly to one side. "Thanks."

The question rose in the back of her mind like the bud of a new flower reaching for sunlight. Why couldn't she tell Jackson who she was in the deepest, darkest part of her young life? Sometimes she called. He always came. It was easy. And then another budding question sought the first warming rays of knowledge too. Would her hunter daddy approve of her average boyfriend? She pushed that one aside and filed it under "too complicated for right now".

Hands linked, Sophie and Jackson crossed the street back to the hardware store. They chose new hardware based on pictures she'd taken of the rocking chair beforehand and then they decided on a rich walnut stain. It was true that she only knew her father through his various visits but she let her instinct guide her to what he might have liked.

As Jackson walked a few blocks south with her to a fabric store, Sophie looked over at him, holding his hand, and wondering why she had such intense periods of pushing him away. A wall tried to build itself between her and all outsiders--anyone who couldn't know she was a witch--and she did so as if she expected them to abandon her. Some very old instinct handed down from witch to witch through time even warned her periodically that confessing the truth to outsiders would provoke their fears and prejudices.

At the fabric store, Sophie chose blue, green, and white checkered fabric for a new chair cushion. She planned to hand sew the entire thing herself, which would give her an opportunity to insert charms in the stuffing for her daddy's good health, restfulness, and protection. Charms, at least, were allowed as a witchling on the brink of mature power.

They agreed to start working on the chair the next day after school, and of course, she insisted on learning to do most of the work herself. Jackson kissed her hand and swept in a low, gallant bow, provoking her laughter as he left. Something in her shifted as his car disappeared around the corner. Maybe she could tell him the truth.

*****

_June 30, 2012_

_I have come to fully understand the limitations of my body even if I am born from one of the oldest witch bloodlines in the world. Sam invited me to join him on a job this morning, which not only required me to wear trousers, but there was a no magick rule as well. I expected to trot around the neighborhood a few times and then come back home for breakfast. I couldn't have been more wrong! Sam jogged five miles without the slightest hint of exhaustion, whereas I nearly crawled to the front door once all was said and done._

_At this moment, I'm sitting on the sofa I hardly ever use in my drawing room. It seems my language amuses Sam, however, and no one uses the phrase drawing room anymore, which he informed me through a laughing smile. Living room. The phrase now is living room and I can get behind that. Living is an uplifting, bright word. And in this living room, I'm imprisoned with my feet resting on a cushion on the coffee table. I'm unaccustomed to inactivity and I don't even know how to operate my own television, but Sam has forbidden me from doing work. Keeping up with his pace, he said, makes me worthy of being treated like a queen. I will not admit how badly my legs hurt right now because he looks so positively happy to have a running partner. Happiness speeds along his recovery. I won't tarnish it by admitting how hard five miles was on my body. I'm two centuries old, after all._

_I hear him clunking about my kitchen. The very fact that I've allowed another person unsupervised into my sacred space, to use my hearth, is a bit unnerving for me. It's unsettling that I'm content to let Sam poke around my possessions while he cooks--exactly what, I don't know. He warned me that his skills in the kitchen are nowhere up to par with his brother's skills, and then his face clouded over, realizing he spoke of his brother in the present tense even though his brother is no more._

_I must get him to talk about it. I suspect the last of the demon blood exploiting his weaknesses and clinging to his soul has to do with this mysterious brother figure. If he doesn't confront it head on, the toxin won't leave his system. It may require pushing on my part and I may have to provoke his anger. Pulling the darkness out of him requires him to touch it._

_July 1, 2012_

_4 am. I haven't slept yet. My body is ready to collapse but my mind keeps cycling through the day's events over and over again._

_The last entry ended abruptly because Sam called me to lunch. He'd made a chicken salad with some sort of light, sweet dressing made with poppyseeds. I enjoyed it but he noticed my downcast mood, and halfway through our meal, sitting there across my kitchen table, he prodded me for the reason. I took the coward's road and confessed the pain radiating through my leg muscles rather than the pain in my heart from knowing I'll soon have to provoke his darkness in order to expel it. It was true that my legs hurt but it wasn't the true reason for my quietness. I think he knew there was something else going on, but being the gentleman of the Old World that he is, he didn't push me on it._

_"You're not a runner, huh?" he asked as he poked at his salad._

_I'm fairly certain I blushed because he laughed under his breath. My inability to speak with my usual confidence around him is becoming rather mortifying for me. I don't understand it._

_Sam smiled down at his plate for a moment and pushed back from the table. He pulled his chair around the corner to my side where he could reach my legs. "Up," he said, patting his lap. I didn't understand what he meant at first. Was he telling me to jump into his lap? I felt ridiculous, thinking that had to be the silliest, most girlish thought to cross my mind since Andrew._

_Andrew. That particular ghost from my past stunned me and I jumped as if I'd been struck by something unseen. Sam blinked, peering at me with so many unspoken questions in his eyes._

_"I-I'm sorry. You just reminded me of someone," I stammered ridiculously._

_He nodded but I sensed his confusion. Without saying a word, he wrapped a hand around my calf and asked me with his eyes if he could proceed. Then I finally understood and swung around to prop my sore legs up on his lap, letting his fingers begin to knead my muscles. Pain intensified under his enormous hands and I winced more than I intended. I never like to show pain. Honestly, I never allow mortals to view me in any manner different than calming strength and sometimes intimidation. Sam's eyes slid sideways at me. His touch softened a bit but he didn't pull away. I hadn't pushed him back._

_"It always feels worse before it feels better," Sam said quietly. "Breathe through it."_

_I couldn't look him in the eye suddenly. That made me uneasy and I started chewing my bottom lip as if I was no more than a young girl facing her first boy instead of being a centuries old witch. Being dismantled wasn't my position. It was his. I was there to dismantle him, drain away the demonic toxin, put him back together again, and send him back to his own life. It was going backwards and I felt disoriented._

_"So who's Andrew?"_

_"What?"_

_Sam eyed me patiently as he swept the hem of my skirt to my knees, still respectful but he didn't understand how skin to skin contact affected me. A witch's nerves are always so close to the surface. We feel heat, cold, pain, and pleasure far more intensely than mortals can understand. I gripped the edge of the table discreetly but I knew my knuckles turned white. The pain of overworking my leg muscles probably would have shocked Sam if he understood, yet I felt the underlying pleasant tingles start to erupt beneath the surface. It was his desire to relieve my suffering. I knew his heart to be true in that moment and I talked myself into relaxing._

_"You said I reminded you of Andrew."_

_I squinted at him. "No, I didn't. I said you reminded me of someone but I didn't give you his name."_

_"Oh." Sam abruptly stopped massaging but left his hands on my leg. "Um, sorry. I guess some of the stuff is still in me. I, uh--" He dropped his eyes again like he was ashamed of the truth. "--I have, uh you know, psychic stuff when I'm on the blood. I didn't mean to go poking around your head or whatever."_

_The shame and embarrassment radiated from Sam's presence and I'm fairly certain one didn't have to be a witch or a psychic to sense it. I bent forward and covered Sam's hands with my much smaller one (funny, the things you notice in those moments)._

_"It's not a bad thing to remind me of Andrew."_

_Sam took a moment before he spoke. "So who was he?"_

_"He was a druggist over in New Orleans."_

_"A druggist," he repeated, scoffing. "What was this, Edwardian stuff?"_

_"No," I said evenly. "There was a nasty hurricane in 1812. All of the Gulf Coast was struck a hard blow, not unlike the hurricane they called Katrina in recent years. The storm raged for more than a day and it destroyed the levee. Everything in the city was damaged. Fifteen feet of Gulf water submerged Plaquemines Parish, sugar crops were wiped out, a hundred people died, and it cost six million. Think of Katrina." She paused for effect. "Now think of Katrina without television to warn people. Think of Katrina without mass information, without evacuation, and without the benefit of modern science to aid in medical care afterward."_

_Entirely sobered by my description, Sam's eyes focused on an unspecified distance as he tried to imagine it._

_"I'm a healer, you know."_

_"And a good one," he added, rubbing the sore spot behind her knee._

_"Well, that remains to be seen. You're one tough patient." I grinned at him and poked at his thigh with my bare foot._

_Sam flashed a quick grin in return and playfully slapped my foot away. I hadn't seen a playful side to him before. At least a decade of unhappiness and guilt lifted from his features with that sort of unguarded amusement. It became my goal to give him that freedom in joy again, but not in that moment. Not until he understood about Andrew, which, I soon realized, became my way of working out the uncertain emotions poking their way through my carefully constructed walls._

_"I've always been a healer, you see. At that time, I was a midwife. It's a very cliche thing now--a witch disguising what she is by being a midwife." I shrugged indifferently. "A cliche thing always has a rather practical reason behind it, of course."_

_"Mh-hmm," agreed Sam with a nod, listening as he massaged my left leg._

_"I went to New Orleans the first moment the hurricane let up because I knew hundreds of people would have died of their wounds in the weeks afterward if skilled healers like me didn't help." My memory spiraled back through time, wading through Gulf waters from house to house looking for wounded, or looking for dead bodies. "Andrew was a druggist from just over the border in Texas. He packed up his supplies and came to New Orleans almost at the same time I did with the same motivation. We were tossed together frequently by the nature of our work, so naturally we got to know each other in a few weeks' time. His only desire in the world was to do good and help people, even to his own detriment again and again. The flooding brought disease with it and I ended up having to nurse him through yellow fever about five months after the hurricane."_

_Sam ceased massaging my sore muscles but left his hands over my shin while I told my story. I could only bear to touch the edges of it here and there. Plunging my hand into the searing pain of loss again wasn't unlike a child warned not to touch a hot stove. It only took one burn to remember that fearful lesson. He gave his full attention, however, and I considered the lukewarm sensation of keeping company with someone who actually cared. It tempered the sting of Andrew's specter rising up in my thoughts whenever he exhibited that deep-rooted empathy that fought against the evils demon blood made him commit._

_"Did this Andrew guy live?"_

_"For a time," I answered, swallowing back my rising nausea. "We had enough time to plug up the holes of emptiness in each other. We tried to make a life together. He never went back to Texas and we went to Baton Rouge, rented a house, and I even found a way to tell him the truth about what I am."_

_Sam grimaced. "How'd he take it?"_

_"Disbelief at first. I had to prove my power and then he was rather distrustful of me for a few months after that. He never left though. I expected to wake and find my bed cold every morning, yet there he remained, softly bearded and softly snoring on the next pillow. Every morning." Tears pricked my eyes with the memory encroaching without my permission, as if Andrew himself pressed his way through the veil to remind me of our fleeting glimpse of contentment. I sighed hard and kept the real emotion leveed behind the wall. "We had four years. It's a long time to a mortal, I suppose, but it was only seconds in the grander picture of my existence. My kind isn't exactly forbidden from mixing with your kind but it's frowned upon, so I was never allowed to mourn as a woman mourns." I looked Sam in the eye then. "Regardless of what I am in my power, I do have a heart that loves or hates like any other heart."_

_"Well, sure you do," Sam said, nodding. "That's obvious."_

_My lips curved up into a feeble smile. "Yes well, given your profession, I suppose you can understand that faster than others. You walk a fine line between worlds, Sam. Part of you will never be completely human again and you can't walk among your kind in blissful ignorance anymore. Perhaps you never could. After trying to have a life with my very human Andrew, my own kind smells humanity on me the way a wolf smells blood."_

_"There are more of you around here?" It intrigued him._

_"New Orleans has the only remaining coven in Louisiana. There's another one in Atlanta but most of my kind are slowly returning to Europe where it's easier to be what we are without prying eyes."_

_He chuckled. "You saying Americans meddle?"_

_"Your word, not mine." I shrugged and smiled from a genuine place in my spirit._

_Sam smiled too, a silent and wide expression that brightened my kitchen. He rubbed his palm back and forth on my shin, quick and rough like an affectionate gesture in the borderland between friendship and beyond. I wasn't about to start overanalyzing his increasing ease with which our lives were beginning to merge, made all the more confusing by the heightened sense of touch prone to my kind. His intent to give me comfort and put me at ease spiked into something different that I hesitate to even name on this page._

_"So these other witches," continued Sam in his quest for knowledge revived since he stopped drinking the blood. "They didn't like you dating the druggist guy--Andrew."_

_"It was rather more than simple dating."_

_"Right. Sorry."_

_"No, they didn't like it but there is no technical law against it, so they were forced to tolerate my presence at the major Sabbats and pretend like nothing was wrong in their minds." I noticed the flicker of a question in Sam's eyes. "There are coven gatherings at Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, and Samhain. There are other gatherings for moon cycles and such but I'm still a bit of an outcast, so I mainly make the trip to New Orleans for Samhain and Yule now. It's been that way since I took up briefly with another mortal man during what you Yankees call Reconstruction. The elders tolerated my indiscretion with Andrew but not with anyone else." I smirked. "To use modern language, you could say I'm a repeat offender."_

_Sam smirked in return. "I'm starting to wonder if I should be worried that you're collecting mortal men for fun," he teased._

_Something in me couldn't resist the twinkle in his eye, the new life in his expression, that I heard myself say, "Third time's a charm," before I could swallow back the words._

_He inclined his head to one side and lifted a brow questioningly. Horrified, I felt hot redness creeping up my face and I abruptly withdrew my legs from his lap as I straightened rigidly in my chair. I tossed my skirt to the floor again, suddenly needing every barrier between him and me that I could muster. The longer Sam stayed silent, the deeper my face went red until I jumped up to my feet and busied my hands with a tea kettle. Tea fixes everything, doesn't it?_

_"Anyhow," I rambled nervously, "Andrew was a good man. I gave it one more try after him but solitude seems to be the lot in life for a witch who doesn't marry another witch. Centuries and centuries tied to one person turns us into bitter creatures so very out of touch with the mortal world that it's almost impossible to function in it. No thank you. I'd rather keep what few shreds of humanity I have and live happily than become a caricature of the evil witch in a black pointy hat. Of course, my coven doesn't really understand. I live with one foot here and one foot there, and I accepted long ago that making a normal home isn't part of my existence. My memories of home with my family in Brittany and then my home with Andrew keep me company. You could say I live with ghosts." It came out in a metaphorical sense but Sam probably knew I meant it in the literal sense._

_"I know what you mean," I heard him say, still sitting at my kitchen table._

_"Some of us live with more ghosts than should be our fair share," I mused._

_He was quiet for a moment. "My whole family's gone."_

_Tingles prickled up my spine into my neck and not the pleasant sort. I had been waiting for an entre into his closely guarded suffering but that was accidental, leaving me unprepared for it. I watched the kettle on my stove rather than face him. I was afraid of shattering his sense of safety._

_"My mom died trying to save me from the demon. My dad died trying to save my brother from dying himself after a car accident, which was demons too. Jess died because of me. Same demon that killed my mom. I watched her burn to death. Smelled her flesh and hair cooking in the flames. Sometimes I think of what my dad felt because he saw my mom die the same way when I was a baby. And now my brother--" Sam quit talking as if the words were scratching at an old wound and threatening to make it bleed all over again. "We were trying to stop Leviathans. A door to Purgatory had been opened after a shakeup in Heaven and--"_

_I sensed him struggling to make sense of everything he'd witnessed in his life but I didn't dare interfere. He had to expel the guilt and allow the remaining demon blood to expel from his body in return. With my back turned, I touched the gold pendant shaped like Brighid and called upon Her for assistance. I discreetly grasped a dish towel, ready for Sam's trauma to trigger another violent, jerking seizure._

_Sam cleared his throat. He didn't like the emotion collecting there, so he kept talking just the way I did. "I had a ... a relationship, I guess ... with a demon once. Ruby. I really did feel something for her but she played me like a fool. I was a tool to release Lucifer from Hell. My brother didn't do much better for a while either. He's been on and off with an angel--a real angel--for years but Cas went way off the reservation and took on God's power. It didn't go well. To get all that power, he kinda swallowed all the souls in Purgatory, and we did some magic to make everything right, but the Leviathans took over and killed him. Or we thought he was dead. My brother was never the same without him and I thought ... I thought ... see, now you know what it's like to watch the only one you ever loved die because of what you are. I wanted him to go through it so I wouldn't be the only one anymore. I wished for my own brother to feel the same torment that I did day in and day out just so he would get it, but I never thought it would happen."_

_"Wanting to be understood doesn't mean you're the reason this angel died," I said._

_"Well, now they're both dead," he said in a flat tone. "We killed the Leviathan leader but Dean and Cas went with him and I don't know if they're in Heaven or Purgatory or what. The only thing I know for sure is everything goes back to the demon feeding me blood when I was a baby. I'm the reason my whole family's dead."_

_I turned away from the stove and faced him. "Sam--"_

_He got up, unfolding his great, tired height from my kitchen table, and shuffled closer. I recognized the stiffness in his body even if he did not. The black sludge rippled within his body, threatening to erupt. Regardless, he stopped only a few inches from me and grasped my hand that clung to the gold Brighid pendant around my neck. He was distracted by the goddess resting on my decolletage and touched my Lady with a hesitant fingertip. Then his eyes lifted to mine again. He was close enough for me to see the gold flecks of suffering and anguish fighting it out with the bluish-green pools of calm around the edges of his irises._

_"I don't have any memories of home," he said softly, "and whenever I've tried to make a home of my own, it really hasn't ended well. You're lucky to have memories of Brittany and New Orleans but--"_

_"--But we're not so different," I said._

_"We still stupidly try to help people no matter what crap gets thrown at us," he said._

_I shrugged lightly. "Not so stupid. What good are we if we don't try to ease the suffering in others that we endure?"_

_"God," he whispered in raw astonishment, "how did I get here?"_

_And then Sam's hands slid around my jaw into the underside of my hair. I barely had a moment to take a breath before his mouth was on mine. He kissed me hard, not asking but taking, as if he didn't have time for old-fashioned rules to which I was accustomed. I couldn't begin to apply words to it if I try, except to say my heightened sensations made it impossible to reject him. It dawned on me that I didn't want him to stop._

_I got jerked forward in the next second and I reeled, disoriented. My eyes opened and witnessed Sam collapse to the floor. I nearly tumbled with him, realizing I had been holding onto one of his wrists and my other hand had been resting on his unshaven jaw. Being tangled up in each other when the seizure struck nearly pulled me into it before I could react. Not only had we kissed but doors between souls opened at our chests, allowing me to feel him as easily as he felt me. Such things are common between two people possessing psychic abilities and they often blended together in those intimate moments._

_But I slammed the door shut to keep my senses about me as Sam fell. His eyes rolled painfully as his limbs stiffened and went heavy with pulsating muscle constrictions. I caught him around the neck just before his head struck the floor. I eased him down as best as I could, pleading sternly with Brighid to give me the strength to hold onto the weight of a man nearly six-and-a-half feet tall._

_"Hold on, Sam," I murmured soothingly, though my voice trembled. "It'll be over soon. It'll all be over soon. Hold onto your happiness and fight it."_

_It didn't appear that he could hear me through his seizure but I spoke to the Sam trapped within that convulsing body. His belly convulsed and I heaved him over onto his side, stablizing him with my knee, and I smoothed back his hair. Thick black evil seeped through his nose and mouth. It looked like a lot more than his last seizure, which told me that Sam had finally touched the root of his self-loathing that drew him to the blood in the first place. As frightening as his seizures were, I knew that one was important. It marked the beginning of the end._

_Rushed and clumsy, I grabbed at the various stones around my neck until I found the striking blue lapis hanging from a long gold chain. I pressed it to his stomach where the demon blood congealed and forced its way up his throat and out through his air passages. The lapis commenced glowing brighter blue as if lit from within and it burned my fingers until my flesh softened, bubbled, and blistered._

_"Heal his soul! Heal his light!" I cried out over Sam's seizure. "I bring him back with all my might! Heal his soul! Heal his light! I bring him back with all my might! Heal his soul! Heal his light! I bring him back with all my might!"_

_The lapis burned my hand as it did its work on Sam, scorching me and causing unbearable pain. I refused to let go. A lapis from the mountains of Afghanistan contained powerful ancient magic and I respected its power, asking it to aid my own through the awful experience. Soon my hand burned to the point of turning black and my flesh smelled absolutely horrid. Burning flesh brought Sam out of his seizure with such a start that the last of the demon toxin burst from his mouth across the floor like projectile vomiting. The force of it threw me back against the leg of my kitchen table with a cry. I dropped the lapis, letting it fall as limp and harmless around my neck as it had always been._

_Coughing, Sam struggled to rise to his hands and knees in spite of the paralyzing exhaustion that always followed his seizures. "Connie!" he sputtered fearfully._

_"Sam," I said, panting hard through the wicked burn hurting my hand. "It's okay. I think it's over. Look. The last of the blood came out with blue light. Look at the floor just there." My eyes fell closed. Sweat dampened my flesh on my face, throat, and decolletage from both pain and magickal exertion. "Merci beaucoup, Madame Brigitte. Je t'adore. Merci beaucoup." Falling into my native tongue to speak to my goddess seemed easier in my drained condition._

_Soon I became aware of a large shadow hovering over me. I forced my eyes open again and found Sam grasping my burned hand. He was still so stiff and weary from the seizure but he fought his way over to me, crawling, and frightened tears rimmed his bleary eyes._

_I tried to sit up but not one limb of my body moved._

_"What the hell happened?" he demanded hoarsely._

_"What a pair we are." My voice slurred like I'd been anesthetized. I giggled but it fell flat. I let myself turn more serious when I looked down at my hand, bubbled with blisters and charred meat. "Sam," I breathed drowsily, "I fear I may have overdone it this time."_

_It seemed that threw him into action but I still don't know where he mustered the strength. "I got you, Connie. Hold on. I got you."_

_Funny, I thought--that was just what I always said to him._

_And that was the last thing I remembered until just a few hours ago. I said I haven't slept yet because I don't believe unconsciousness counts as real, restful sleep. I'm in my bed writing this as the sun makes ready to bring the day. Sam is here. He's sitting in a chair beside my bed with his arms folded and his head lying here fast asleep. My left hand is wrapped from fingertips to upper wrist in crisp, white bandages. So he went poking around my bathroom, it seems, and nursed my wounds. My hand throbs. I still feel magickal fire in it, which I could easily heal with a variety of spells, but I don't think I will. I believe I'll keep these scars. I earned them._

_July 2, 2012_

_I'm still convalescing in bed. There hasn't been much to report here. It seems that in my haste to ease Sam's suffering yesterday, I began drawing it into myself without realizing it. I'm quite ill now. My carelessness means Sam is now looking after me when I should be looking after him._

_I tried to get out of bed this morning to use the convenience but my legs felt like rubber when my feet touched the floor. I dropped like a rag, which woke Sam. It was mortifying to have him walk me across the hall to the convenience but he said nothing about it. After all, I had done the same for him when he needed a shower after his initial detoxification. It is, he said, only fair that he return the favor. I think I scared him though and he feels responsible for me now._

_July 3, 2012_

_Today has seen some improvement in my condition. It doesn't matter much to me and I keep asking Sam how he feels. He says there haven't been any seizures since the last one. Apparently he cleaned up the mess on his own too, which I'm loathed to allow him to do, because I fear being reminded of it might trigger another one. He insists he's feeling all right._

_We haven't spoken of what happened the day of the last seizure. He seems rather occupied with changing my bandages and making sure infection doesn't set in since I refuse to go to a hospital. Yes, I could heal myself and I think about that at least a dozen times a day, but I still want to bear these scars. I want to go through the pain of healing. It binds me to the humanity I've tried to live with in different times of my long life. It binds me to Sam, who will most certainly want to leave and resume his life before the demon blood addiction. I made the grave mistake, it seems, of growing too attached to my patient._

_Still, he does not speak of kissing me, nor has he kissed me again since. I want to inquire about his state of mind but my weakened condition allows unwelcome vulnerability. I'm frightened of being rejected and told it was a mistake._

_Even so, Sam remains attentive. I'm up and walking again but he won't let me use my burned hand at all. That makes me rather useless. I believe this is Sam's comfort zone, as they say, and I see hints of a boy deep inside who was never properly cared for except by a brother who did the best he could, and this grown man today consoles himself by caring for others. Bandaging my burns, helping me dress, etc., seems to restore his sense of usefulness. Perhaps my injuries are divine intervention to set right his equilibrium._

_July 4, 2012_

_This morning, Sam came into my room with a plotting sort of smile. He said I should choose something nice to wear because we're going over to New Orleans for Independence Day. When I asked him what he was thinking, he said we both need a break. No magick, no demon blood, no mourning the old ghosts in our pasts._

_The idea of being normal appealed to me as much as it did him and I found myself nodding eagerly as he rifled through my wardrobe. He pulled out a bright teal length of fabric--something present clothiers call a maxi dress--and asked if I liked that one. I couldn't argue with his excitement. It didn't matter so much to me what I wore so long as he was grabbing life with both hands again. That was my goal when I found him in the bar three weeks ago. How far this man's come since then._

_I sensed a certain magic in the day--not my magick, but the natural sort of magic that comes after realizing you've survived a horrific storm. So I got dressed and put on silver bangle bracelets over my bandaged burns paired with silver Celtic knots dangling from my ears and a chain around my neck. I left the lapis at home, deciding not to remind either of us just how we suffered in the last seizure._

*****

Time slipped through Sophie's fingers as she read the journal, and before she knew it, hours slid past midnight. She cursed under her breath as she laid the ribbon marker on the July 4th page and put the leatherbound book in her nightstand drawer. Not one word of homework had been done and, looking at the clock, figured she only had four hours left before she had to get up for school.

Of course she hadn't counted on reading that much in one sitting but she grew more and more attached to her father by the page, realizing she only knew a small piece of him in her childhood. Seeing him through her mother's eyes made her understand that they both viewed Sam Winchester as a mythic hero in their own ways. Reading her mother's account of their early days drew Sophie closer to the woman, the witch, who had always intimidated her. Though Connie saw Sam through romantic eyes and Connie through paternal eyes, it was clear that their devotion merged together like two streams forming a river.

Sophie unfolded off the bed and stretched the kinks out of her joints. She changed into her nightgown, yet she had no desire to get back into bed. If she did, the journal would call to her from the nightstand drawer and she wouldn't sleep at all.

The quiet house stood peaceful and secure around Sophie as she padded down the hall. She outstretched a hand with a ball of light emanating from her palm to avoid tripping over table legs or rug edges as she picked her way through the darkness. Those minor works of magick would soon grow upon her initiation as a mature witch, a thought that filled her with far more excitement than dread in recent months. Still, she didn't know what of the six witch powers would be her own. There was plenty of time to consider those implications though, she thought with a lengthy yawn.

Connie Rulon-Winchester slept in the same room she'd occupied for close to two centuries. It was the same room where she recovered from her burns, where Sophie's father had burst in excitedly seventeen years before with a plan to be normal for Independence Day. Sophie spotted her mother's body under the quilts, outlined by the low orange glow from her fireplace.

Warm and inviting, the room was what Sophie needed to center herself again. She flicked her wrist to put out the ball of light conjured in her palm and felt her way to the empty side of the bed, where she slithered under the quilts.

There, her mother slept facing her with heavy dark hair spilling over her shoulders and the pillows. That faint scent clung to her skin and drew Sophie back to her childhood. Earthy and rich, Connie perpetually smelled like the lavender, sage, and occasionally spicy herbs used in the lotions, soaps, and potions she sold to eager mortals. Where they saw a somewhat eccentric New Age-y kind of woman, Sophie saw the real power, the source of her own power, stretching back through time. Even in sleep, Connie seemed bright and luminous. Sophie used to love watching her crush herbs with the mortar and pestle in the kitchen, or read tea leaves for women seeking answers about their lovers, or men secretly knocking on the kitchen door for potions to restore their virility and clever wits.

Yawning suddenly, Connie stretched like a cat in bed. "Oh ma petit, what are you doing here? You haven't crawled into my bed since you were a little girl."

"I can't sleep," said Sophie, finding no better reason.

"I see." Connie reached over and tucked her hair behind her ear. Her eyes narrowed in the dim firelight and Sophie knew she was being analyzed. "Sleep, precious girl. In the morning, I'll tell the school you've fallen ill. One day for rest. That's all. You don't want to fall behind in your studies, hm?"

"Yeah," she replied, relieved. A moment passed in silence. Then, spontaneously, she blurted the question in a rushed whisper. "Maman, can I see your hand?"

The older witch blinked and considered the question without reacting for a long second. She twisted under the quilts and unfurled her left hand over Sophie's pillow without a word. At first Sophie hesitated, not wanting to make her mother feel like a freak with that injury, but she never knew the story behind it until that night. Scar tissue glowed with a waxy quality in the firelight. Rolling on her stomach, Sophie cradled her mother's hand in her own. She traced the pattern of smooth, raised tissue marking where Connie once clutched a healing piece of blue lapis to Sam's chest as his body seized and expelled demon poison.

"It's like a battle wound," Sophie murmured.

Connie agreed. "It is."

"I just finished reading about what you did for Daddy here."

"I assumed so."

"Can you feel it?"

Without a sense of regret, Connie shook her head. "Not much. It doesn't hinder my craft, so I see no need to heal it."

"You wanted to be reminded of what you went through for Daddy."

"I wanted to be reminded of how hard we both fight to have a sense of normalcy while walking such a fine line between worlds," Connie explained.

Sophie leaned down and kissed the palm of her mother's hand covered in burn scars, and then folded her fingers over the kiss. It seemed sacred somehow, touching something tangibly linked to her father, like the patched over crack in the wall in her bedroom down the hall.

A faint glimmer of a smile brought up Connie's lips. "Your father does that." She reached over with her free hand again and stroked Sophie's hair. "Go to sleep, ma petit. We'll talk more tomorrow."


	6. Chapter 6

Sophie didn't touch her mother's journal the next day, having spent so many hours reading before and missing school because of it. The light of morning brought with it the impression that she needed a little distance between herself and her father's demon blood addiction. It was starting to weigh her down, especially since she couldn't look at her mother's hand anymore without seeing the burn scars.

Instead, not long after school ended, she called her boyfriend to come over and help her get the rocking chair repairs started. They worked together on the back porch until the sun went down taking apart the old hardware, which was so rusted around the sides that Jackson had to pry it all apart.

"Does your mom do that all day long?" asked Jackson, gesturing through the screen with a screwdriver.

She didn't have to follow his gaze to know her mother sat across the kitchen table from a woman in the middle of an intense conversation. "No, not all day but often enough." Wood nearly splintered when her screwdriver popped out of place and she cursed under her breath. "Maman has a lot of clients in the parish. They drive for miles and miles for her help. If she's doing it with you around, it means she likes you."

"Well, that's cool, I guess." He chuckled somewhat sheepishly. "What's she doing exactly? I mean, I know she sells lotions and candles and stuff, but that woman isn't sniffing samples."

"Maman talks to the dead."

"Oh.... Right now?"

"Yep."

"Oh."

There was that skeptical tone Sophie was so accustomed to but something else filtered through his tone. She glanced at him discreetly as he failed at using the same discretion to watch her mother in the kitchen. A little smile twitched the corner of her mouth. She recognized his mind sorting through the information, which she had mentioned in the past, but he had never seen in action.

"Is it okay?" she probed.

Jackson looked down at her. "Well, I mean, is she telling the truth?"

"Yeah."

"No tricks?"

"No, she's honest."

With a sigh, perhaps of relief, Jackson nodded and gave her a charming smile. "It's cool by me as long as she's not doing bad stuff to people." He shrugged and leaned in to kiss her lips.

Comfortable silence descended over the porch as the sun faded into the western sky. They disassembled the right arm of the rocking chair, and while Sophie sanded down the individual skinny spokes, she considered how well her boyfriend took her candid answer. He did know her mother was interested in "New Age" things. It was obvious to anyone who came into their house. Just how deeply involved Connie Rulon-Winchester was remained something unspoken between them until that evening.

She cleared her throat and decided to test the waters. "Jackson?"

"Yeah, baby," he said, engrossed in not wood gluing his fingers together.

"You know what I'm saying, right? My mother's for real."

Jackson nodded. "Yep."

"You believe it?"

"Soph, you've never lied to me," he said in his most serious tone. "If you tell me something with that little wrinkle in your forehead, I know you're not giving me a line of bullshit."

"What little wrinkle in my forehead?" she demanded, playfully offended.

Grinning, he reached for her forehead and traced the lines between her eyes just above her eyebrows. "The more intense you get, the more it looks like a wifi signal embedded in your pretty skin."

"It does not look like a wifi signal!"

They both broke into laughter as Sophie slapped her hand over her brow. From inside the kitchen, Connie peered through the screen door and gave them a narrowed eye warning them to keep quiet. She quickly turned her attention back to the client, speaking in a hushed, soothing voice about a mother called Rebecca who died too soon. Sophie, smirking, slapped her boyfriend on the upper arm for making fun of her expressions and for getting them in trouble.

It came off so well, telling him about some of her mother's work, and she wasn't expecting that in the slightest. She'd been brought up from the minute she could talk to compartmentalize her life and never, ever let a mortal person in on an ounce of her witch life. But Jackson accepted the idea that her mother was a medium after only a minute or two of hesitation. His easygoing attitude went against everything she'd been taught to believe about mortals. They were small-minded and intolerant, her mother had told her. If they knew what she was, they'd make her an outcast or worse.

Sophie had a hard time reconciling those ideas with the mortal men populating her life. Her father had understood her mother being a witch so well that he'd married her and had a baby. Then, sitting there on the porch sanding off old paint from the rocking chair, Jackson's depth of heart allowed him to take her mother's spirit communication skills in stride.

It was a far cry from saying, "Hey, I'm a semi-immortal witch!" but maybe ... maybe she could build up to it. Maybe she could tell him the truth one day.

After Jackson kissed her goodbye and went home, dreams moved fluidly from one confused, hazy image to another that night. Sometimes her unconscious mind visited her father's image as a young man and sometimes she saw him decades later--wrinkled, silver-haired, and finally settled with the family. Whenever a young version of her father appeared, there was a sense of disconnection, like looking at a picture instead of the real man. Only the old man years from then felt like someone she could touch and know every day.

A sense of dread filled her when she woke, making her wonder if Sam Winchester wouldn't be able to join his family until the end of his life. He wasn't elderly yet, not by a long shot. Still, she couldn't shake the sensation of being on the clock. Time was running out but she didn't know what that meant.

With a huff and a self-deprecating eyeroll, Sophie flopped on her back in bed and slung her arm over her face. "Get it together. You're being paranoid."

She peeled back her blankets and crawled out of bed. The dream shot her into full consciousness, uncaring about the fact that she had school in the morning. With a stretch high over her head, Sophie let her naked toes rub the soft surface of her bedroom rug. It grounded her in the present moment. Each thread woven into the rug pulled her further away from the awful dream, the idea that her father might not settle down with her mother until he was old and gray. Daddy had given his entire life to his brother and the Men of Letters. When would it be Sophie's turn? Or her mother? Hadn't they waited long enough without demanding more from him than he could give?

Being overcome with such a black mood ensured Sophie wouldn't sleep for the rest of the night. She plopped into the window seat and snatched an overstuffed pillow to clutch against her chest. Cold moonlight cast a silver haze over Louisiana. Her backyard appeared especially illuminated, still, and without a breath of wind. Tiny hairs came to attention along the back of her neck. She knew that feeling.

A sense of alertness straightened Sophie's posture. Nothing in the room with her. She leaned close to the window, pulling back the lace curtain, and there in the darkness below stood a lean figure. White billowed around her legs. Blonde hair tumbled down her shoulders and there - there was a large ... circular shape over her abdomen. Dark and rusty in color. Sophie felt her forehead wrinkle just the way Jackson had described it earlier in the afternoon, like a wifi signal. The woman turned her pale face up to Sophie's window and stared at her, stared hard like she had something to say but couldn't get it out.

"I'm sorry," Sophie whispered against the glass.

A witchling not yet at maturity couldn't communicate with the dead so easily, not without risking pain and sickness. Sophie wondered if that woman was the first manifestation of her spirit guide and then regret melted into excitement. If so, she'd be back. Sophie would grow into her power and she'd finally know her lifelong spirit companion. But who was she?

When Sophie looked below again, the woman was gone. Everything would reveal itself in time. That was what Maman's mother always said - at least that was how Maman relayed it.

Sophie padded across the room and pulled her mother's journal from her nightstand drawer. If she wasn't going to sleep anymore, she might as well get some reading done, especially since her initiation ritual was looming fast. She sat in the nest of decorative pillows in her window seat again, resigned to keeping an eye out for her blonde visitor should she make an attempt to return.

*****

July 5, 2012

Yesterday morning, Sam came into my room with a plotting sort of smile. He said I should choose something nice to wear because we're going over to New Orleans for Independence Day. When I asked him what he was thinking, he said we both need a break. No magick, no demon blood, no mourning the old ghosts in our pasts.

The idea of being normal appealed to me as much as it did him and I found myself nodding eagerly as he rifled through my wardrobe. He pulled out a bright teal length of fabric - something present clothiers call a maxi dress - and asked if I liked that one. I couldn't argue with his excitement. It didn't matter so much to me what I wore so long as he was grabbing life with both hands again. That was my goal when I found him in the bar three weeks ago. How far this man's come since then.

I sensed a certain magic in the day - not my magick, but the natural sort of magic that comes after realizing you've survived a horrific storm. So I got dressed and put on silver bangle bracelets over my bandaged burns paired with silver Celtic knots dangling from my ears and a chain around my neck. I left the lapis at home, deciding not to remind either of us just how we suffered in the last seizure.

We made the long drive into New Orleans and I let myself be content in letting him navigate the black automobile he'd been driving before we met. Of course, I've been coming in and out of New Orleans since Sam's great great great grandparents were in pinafores and pigtails but seeing renewed life through his eyes gave me pause. I knew about every building he pointed out while we walked around the French Quarter and beyond. Perhaps he did too. Yet he spoke of everything in speculative questions and eyes turned up to the wrought iron balconies as if neither of us had before experienced life or liberty. The irony of renewed life and liberty on America's Independence Day didn't escape me. I let the humid afternoon lie between us, the charge between our linked hands strong enough for my hair to frizz on the ends.

"You think those places are the real thing?" Sam asked me as we walked further away from the crowds and drunken revilers in the French Quarter.

My eye followed the jerk of his chin toward an antique store with piles of treasures spilling out onto the street. "Some of these places are legitimate." I felt my French accent thicken but I didn't know why. "The energy radiating from this place...."

"Is it legit?"

I nodded and Sam's mouth turned up in a conspiratorial smile. He let go of my hand. The void in my palm hurt for a moment, making me follow him as if a cord stretched between us to prevent separation. Sam wandered toward a high armoire thick with layers of paint over the decades. Inside there were handmade linens and other things for sale, all separate, of course. He plucked a stack of embroidered cushions from deep inside of the armoire that I hadn't seen but he obviously saw from across the street.

When he faced me, the cushions balanced on his forearm, the aroma of home hit me so hard that I stopped in the last traffic lane. Tears sprang to my eyes. Lady Brigid, save me, but I loved him then for finding something from my home - from France.

"Looks just like the stuff in your house, huh?" Sam made the comment so casually that I knew he hadn't seen my tears. I stepped onto the sidewalk, drawing closer, and I tried to smile as he spoke of practical things. "Not to be ungrateful or anything but those rocking chairs on your back porch are really hard. Like butt-numbingly hard. So I'm gonna buy you these cushions for your rocking chairs and maybe the next wounded stray you take in will get some of my good juju. You fixed me, right? I wanna leave something to, you know, maybe help the next one."

I wanted to scream out that he wasn't just one in a box of abandoned puppies left on my porch. There weren't going to be other men after him either. If this one didn't stick, as young girls today like to say, I knew I wasn't going to have it in me to try again. My burned hand throbbed inside of Sam's careful bandages and I flexed my fingers. It's peculiar the little things we notice in those moments that change the course of our personal histories. My hand screamed at me, reminding me that I'd already handed myself over to Sam before his head hit my kitchen floor and the seizure nearly took him from me. And he was so pleased with the treasure he found. Cheerful irises embroidered on beige silk looked strange clutched in such a hard arm thick with muscles.

Throwing my arms around Sam's neck and kissing him openly there on the New Orleans street happened before my nerves caught up with my brain. I felt the chair cushions pressing against my back and I realized he'd shifted so he could wrap me tightly in his arms. The Louisiana sun broiled my skin and prickled my scalp but not as much as the beauty in surrendering to what I'd been fighting for weeks.

Needless to say, we didn't make it to the fireworks over the river last night. Sam rented a room in a rather opulent hotel, of which I asked why he spent so much money on it and he said he'd spent his life in dirty motels and he wasn't going to remember me that way.

Streaks of fire and color filled the blackened sky outside of our balcony but we never emerged to watch the spectacle. We made love the old way people made love at the boiling point of summer in slow, steady heat and unspoken communication. I vaguely remember seeing gold fire bursting in the sky through gauzy curtains but nothing mattered to me anymore except him. I'm old - so old - but with him, there was nothing to remind me of the family I lost. I suspect it was the same for him. We found family in each other. We clung so fiercely to the unspoken moments that thin red scratches marked his arms and my thighs. I bear the marks still, along with my burned hand.

Sam is consuming me. I've fallen into the fire and I'm pleased to be here.

I haven't slept yet. I expect it'll be dawn soon and I should return to bed before Sam wakes and finds me gone. The city is quiet below me, however, and there's a cool breeze rolling in from the Mississippi. I have my feet up on the balcony railing. Slouching in this chair and writing in my darling book propped on one of the cushions Sam bought for me feels almost as delicious as making love. My body is still so very rubbery even hours afterward. I hardly know how I'll walk to Sam's automobile....

*****

Reading about Maman and Daddy having sex drove Sophie back into ballet. She sure as hell wasn't going to go home after school even if her mother promised shrimp and lobster tails for supper. Millions of people went their whole lives without knowing the slightest details about their parents' sex lives.

"Maman could've at least edited things out," Sophie whispered to her friend, Julie, stretching beside her at the barre. "I didn't know it was gonna end up sounding like one of those old Harlequin books your sister likes to collect. I think I'm scarred for life."

"Whatever it took to bring you back to class, I'm happy." Julie went into first position and drooped into demi plie, demi plie, demi plie, and grand plie.

Behind her now, Sophie held onto the barre for dear life with one hand and held her other hand out in the most delicate position. She too swept her body low into demi plie, demi plie, demi plie and grand plie with the rest of the class. Just doing barre warmup exercises had her thighs and calves screaming for peace but she realized the sweat and work felt wonderful. She regretted taking a two-year hiatus. Ballet was one thing her mother never had and her father never mentioned. It was all her own identity. Running away from the leather bound journal drove her back into who she was before her witchling powers began to mature.

Soon the class let go of the barre altogether after the easier portion of the warm up exercises and each girl faced the mirrored wall.

"Developpe," said the instructor in her soothing voice as she glided between rows.

Hands reaching straight out from her sides and feet in first position, Sophie drew her left foot up along the floor against her right ankle as her arms elegantly swept downward into a wide hoop before her belly button. The movement came out a bit shaky as her left leg, foot pointed straight, extended toward the mirror. Her arms opened up again. She always thought that particular movement resembled a flower blooming toward the sunlight.

As the class repeated the developpe movement three more times, the instructor with her flaming curly hair tied on top of her head began paying closer attention to her. Sophie cringed inwardly, knowing she wasn't there for professional reasons but simply to lose herself in motion and music. Ballet let her forget for an afternoon that she wasn't a semi-immortal witch or that her mother and father had amazing sex. Oh goddess help her. Some things just couldn't be scrubbed out of her memory. Her right foot wobbled on the floor under the instructor's hard attention.

"You're tall," the flame-haired woman said.

"I'm aware, Madame Beatrix," Sophie replied, focused on the mirror.

"You're a head taller than every girl in this room."

"Yes." Sophie ground her teeth. She felt Julie's nervous anxiety rise at the barre beside her.

Madame Beatrix nodded as she appraised Sophie. "You carry your height with grace. Long lines will translate well on the stage, though your male dance partners will have to be robust." Her eyes dropped to Sophie's wobbling ankle. "Are you recovering from an injury?"

"Torn ligaments two years ago, Madame."

"And you're a dancer again?"

Sophie pulled her eyes from the mirror to the instructor, thinking it over for a moment. "Yes," she said, weight in her voice, "I am a dancer."

The hard instructor smiled. Julie relaxed. Sophie felt liberated.


End file.
